


Stargazing

by claimedbydaryl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A Lot Of Emotional Bed Sharing, Alternate Universe - Space, And Inordinate Amounts Of Touching, Angst, Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, But With A Tragically Gay Love Story And Feelings, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, It's Basically A Space Opera, M/M, Nightmares, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:44:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5015968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claimedbydaryl/pseuds/claimedbydaryl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running from the oppressive memory of Hydra—which still existed a hushed children's story on planets which were barely into their first generation of colonisation—Bucky is soon hired by Tony Stark, captain of the decommissioned military ship JARVIS. Although he doesn't expect to last more than three lunar cycles with the odd but well-meaning crew, Bucky's entire game plan changes following his first encounter with the handsome but melancholic pilot, Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ship or Shuttle?

Bucky rolled the stub of tobacco between his fingers, savouring the last dregs of heady smoke. It his was his last one, courtesy of a brief stint in fixing ancient Earthen machinery on a plant in its first stages of colonisation. The people there were dumb, slow and simple. The tech was even worse still. At least haggling included only a few seconds of steely-eyed almost-threats and subtly flexing the slotted metal plates of his left arm.

He spared a glance at the said limb—his sleeveless T-shirt revealed the slim lines of gleaming titanium, a perfectly moulded twin to his flesh arm, no more than a relic of technology. Bucky ignored the wary glances it earned him. He knew his arm had once been a marvel of Hydra ingenuity, and that sooner or later a greasy-haired commandeer of a ramshackle aged war ship or shuttle would be able to recognise the red insignia of a five-pointed star on his bicep.

Hydra was a child’s story—a once-great intergalactic company that manufactured legions of state-of-the-art fighter jets and luxury cruise liners and multi-purpose carrier boats. The underlying whispers of thriving black markets and dangerous experiments on alien technology were scarcer still, and most space-dwellers were unnerved by the memory of cyborg operatives patrolling dim market streets. Of throats slit in the dark, of the pulsating fear of metal hands and red stars, of an unseen presence that commandeered backwater smuggling routes. But it was no more than a remnant now, disbanded, scattered across the universe.

A white-haired man passed him closely, his silver uniform striped with purples—an vibranium runner, probably on leave. A laughing woman with long, dark hair was at his elbow. Bucky watched them with a sour curl to his lip, stubbing the tobacco under his heel.

He wasn’t going to find any work here, not somewhere were people didn’t frown and pick at their dirt-lined fingertips, always waiting for something better to come along.

“Ship or shuttle?” A sudden voice prompted, startling Bucky out of his reverie.

He glanced at the goateed man only a few feet away from him, leaning against a wall with a well-practised smile. A baseball cap pushed low over his brow, he was dressed in a grease-stained singlet and overalls tied at his waist, scruffy and self-satisfied. He looked more like a vagabond than a potential employer.

“Can you even afford a shuttle?”

“Is that star even real?” He replied coolly, gesturing at Bucky’s metal arm. He was subtly seeking affirmation about his past at Hydra, as his position as an engineer although Bucky looked more machine than man himself.

Bucky flexed his fingers instinctively, adopting his usual aggressive stance. He brimmed with hostility, a dog-like snarl contorting his expression into something sinister and mean. But he needed work. He needed something to do to keep his hands and mind occupied. Swallowing the rise of anger in his throat, Bucky nodded shortly.

“Ship.” He said, suppressing a shudder. Bucky recalled his last ill-advised experience bunking with three other inept conmen on an illegal one-man shuttle—a ship was his only option, no matter how much more volatile he was around a greater number of people.

The goateed man smiled wryly, rubbing his chin. “Decommissioned SHIELD transport boat which lasted about five civil wars. It has two main engines that are currently running on fuel syphoned from abandoned Hydra jets in the Northern Quadrant. Too old to depend on solar fuel cells.” He gauged Bucky’s reaction carefully, assessing his every movement, every flicker of his eyes. “A crew of six, including me, although the numbers change depending on whichever part of the galaxy we end up in. You can spend the day off-board at fuel ports but you sleep in your own bunks at night. You eat with us, you live with us, and you die with us.” He scratched his blunt fingernails over his scalp, shrugging his shoulders. “No dice on that one, kid.”

Bucky searched for the vestige of his former self somewhere deep in his chest, looking for the one that was more quick to laugh then grin—although it was a miracle to grimace nowadays.

“What’s the code of conduct on fraternising with ship mates?” Bucky asked, his smile grim.

“Do it only if you plan on marrying them,” he replied amusedly. Then, the man laughed deep and throaty, sounding more like a dirt colonist than a sleek, well-groomed someone from the illustrious Inner Provinces. “C’mon, we only paid for three Universal Credit mooring time. Thrusters on, kid.”

Bucky ignored the kid jibe, even if the guy was barely a decade older than him. “So I’m hired?” His tone was flat, but the uncertainty of the question still remained.

“You were the moment I saw that arm.”

Bucky stared after his retreating back before spurring into action, strapping his duffel bag over his shoulder and starting after his new boss. He walked three paces behind the man for the sake of not wishing to look eager, following him through the winding maze of market stalls.

The place was aptly named Halftown. It was a hub of activity, a midway point between three rural planets that were barely into their second generations of colonists, lingering in a moon’s tenuous gravity. The ground beneath Bucky’s booted feet was layer upon layer of wooden and steel infrastructure, steadily growing with the population of aspiring salespersons and colonist wives and young runners looking for a SHIELD helmet and a jet to pilot.

Scraggly herbs were strung from stalls, fish and rodent carcasses hanging from coarse rope above their heads, vendors dressed in roughspun tunics and animal hides. The air was thick with heat from barbeques and the nearness of three suns, and rank with the smell of rotted meat and unwashed skin—crude and dirty and easy to hide in.

Whichever boat Bucky ended up on, he knew it had to be inconspicuous. A couple of well-meaning but insignificant crew members and a rundown ship equated to a few lunar cycles of fragile sanctity. It’d do for now, at least.

The goateed man stopped at the edges of the bustling market, at the docks. A whole sea of bulky ships and boats and sleek jets stretched out in front of him, tethered to moors by ropes and cable wire and knotted clothes. They drifted with every short burst of burning fire from exposed turbines and whipping engine blades, like birds ready to take flight.

“There he is,” Bucky’s companion said, turning back to him with a genuine flash of teeth.

Bucky squinted. “Where?”

He huffed, swiping his hat from the crown of his head and pointing to the nearest cargo boat. He recognised the A brand painted on its right as an Avengers class ship, about three models too old to be considered anything remotely modern. It had probably served honourably in a past war or two before a captain had bought the decrepit vessel after winning a few more Universal Credits in a tavern—extra UCs always seemed to make people a little stir-crazy.

“What’s her name?” Bucky asked absentmindedly. It didn’t look like much, no more than a flying hovel with two large war-time engines that didn’t function as much as it merely managed.

“ _His_. It’s JARVIS.”

“Boss,” a lithe red-haired woman appeared on the metal lip of the waiting loading ramp. “We’re two minutes away from a mooring ticket we can’t pay. Let’s set sail. _Pronto_.”

The goateed captain readjusted his hat, already heading towards the ship. “Thrusters on, second mate.”

A blonde man appeared at her side, causally hanging from his knees. An arrow tattoo was inked along the underside of his forearm. “Who’s the cyborg?” He jerked his head at Bucky.

“Barton, this is your replacement.”

“Stars.” The tattooed man breathed a sigh of relief. “I was sick of fixing the unfixable. This hunk of rust isn’t even worth salvaging.”

“If you call hitting the fuel converter a few times with a monkey wrench fixing it, than I’m glad you’re on kitchen duty now. Forever.” The captain was unmoved. “Even if that means forgoing Bruce’s beef stroganoff.”

The blonde nodded his head sagely. “That man did know how to even make vacuum-sealed meat taste good.”

“C’mon, we gotta be in hyperspace by the second sunrise.” The goateed man nudged Bucky’s shoulder, the downturned corner of his mouth the only sign that he’d noticed how the brunet flinched. “Ain’t no rest for the wicked, or whatever nonsense those dirt colonists spout.”

Bucky followed him onto the loading ramp and into the cavernous space of the cargo bay. The redhead called out a warning before pulling a heavy metal lever, the ship mechanics whirring into motion, shutting them inside. The atmosphere stabilised with a faulty hiss of air, the automatic lights flickering to life for two seconds before fading altogether.

“How’s our backup generator doing?” The captain asked no one in particular.

The blonde leaned back on a set of secured cargo shipments, the redhead perched immaculately close-by. “It should’ve given out about two lunar cycles ago.”  He said before directing his attention to Bucky. “Sure you can fix this dismal excuse for a boat?”

“Can’t you?” He replied, his snide offsetting sarcasm.

The tattooed man’s smile was lopsided. “I like him.”

Throwing a dry look in the blond’s direction, the captain looped his arm over Bucky’s shoulders. “Kid, meet our crew.” He gestured grandly to the assortment of people that had amassed in the cargo bay, even though Bucky had catalogued each of their silent arrivals with a keen awareness.

Bucky raised his chin defiantly under their collective scrutiny—he was used to it.

“Seated on our latest payment we have our former mechanic seated next to our second mate and her infamous thousand-yard stare.” He pointed at the blond who introduced himself as Clint and his striking female companion as Natasha. “Our resident doctor, both mental and physical, who adamantly swears he’s a fancy-schmancy scientist or something. And then our foreign relations and token Inner Provinces crewmate.” He gestured to a round-shouldered, kind-looking man and a hulking, long-haired blond standing on the catwalk above. The first—Bruce, he called himself—was too shy to smile and the second—unfortunately named Thor—was dumb enough not to.

“Sir—” A crisp Earthen accent filled the still air.

“Oh and I forgot about our lovable yet stifled AI.” The goateed captain glanced around as if searching for the disembodied voice. “Kid, meet JARVIS. JARVIS, meet kid.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kid.”

Bucky frowned. “It’s Barnes, actually.”

“My sincerest apologises, Barnes. But Captain Stark, I do digress—”

A chorus of groans silenced JARVIS’ polite speech.

“JARVIS, the more you call him that the more liable Tony is to wearing the hat.” Bruce said exasperatingly, pushing off the catwalk railing and disappearing into the upper deck of the ship. Unwilling to touch on the subject, Thor trailed after him with a quick salute to his captain and Bucky.

“But you guys love my hat,” the man—Tony Stark, apparently—objected, thankfully raising his hand off Bucky’s shoulder to hold his tanned arms out in question.

“We tolerate it from a purely aesthetic point of view,” Natasha commented, gliding past them both. “Boss, Barnes.” She tipped her head in their direction as farewell.

Clint jumped onto his feet heavily, jogging after the redhead. “I’m going to have to side with my wife on this one, Captain.” He clapped a calloused hand over Bucky’s flesh shoulder. “Nice meeting you though. See you at the galley, Barnes.”

“Wife?” Bucky prompted once the pair was gone.

Tony levelled him with a flat look. “You didn’t think I was joking about the fraternising with crewmates, did you?”

Suddenly, the ship lurched forward, causing Bucky and Tony to clumsily stumble on the metal grating. Bucky caught one the cargo’s straps and held. The whole place began to vibrate as the engine sputtered to life, propelling them upwards at a sluggish yet not exceedingly slow pace. Once they were somewhat vertical, Tony continued to prattle on about the ship’s interior and crew dynamics.

The lower deck housed the cargo bay, engine room, infirmary, munitions storage and two empty shuttle docks. The upper deck was more people- than ship-orientated, leading to a joint galley and expansive recreational area, five dorms, a cockpit, greenhouse, observation deck, and two gun emplacements.

“Uh, sorry,” Tony stopped, looking uncomfortable for the first time Bucky had met him, “but we have only five rooms and seven people on-board now. Barton and Romanoff already make do bunking together with being married and all, and I don’t think anyone else is really up to sharing the only space they got to themselves on this here fine vessel.” He tapped a nearby panel for emphasis.

“I’ll take the engine room,” Bucky offered. “I work better with machines anyway.”

Tony laughed at Bucky’s comment, although the harsh truth lingered beneath Bucky’s offhand veneer—he was already itchy with the amount of interaction he’d experienced today at witnessing the close bond these six crewmates shared.

“Good man.” Tony nodded, loping to the centre of the ship, which was the intimidatingly jovial lounge. “Ask Thor and he’ll string you up a hammock, maybe drag in a few spare cupboards or footlockers or something.”

Bucky envisioned the cramped, overheated space in the engine room. Whatever clothes he bought would stink of engine fuel and sweat by their first fuel port. He had no personal effects to speak of. And every crew member—he still had yet to meet the sixth and final one—had either looked at him with wariness or disinterest.

He shook his head and prayed to any of the undeveloped colonist ideas of gods that maybe he’d last more than two Earthen lunar cycles.

Bucky did as he was bid, finally released from Tony’s overzealous clutches as he and the stoic but gentle Thor set about making up his room. He was grateful that Thor didn’t talk much, only speaking when necessary with a thick accent that spoke of good breeding and a well-fed childhood.

They arranged a worn hammock hanging parallel to the two large cylindrical engines, securing a footlocker to the ground with a few expertly placed screws. Thor brushed the picture of Earth that was glued to the wall with a sort of reverence—it was a gaudy picture of bright blues and greens and whites, _Welcome To_ _Paradise_ emblazoned across the bottom.

“See you at the galley,” Thor said as goodbye before retreating from his strange new crewmate and his dismally sparse living quarters.

Bucky didn’t answer him, nausea causing his vision to swirl and his stomach to roil. He sat on his hammock, staring at the orange-tinged ceiling. He ran a hand over his face, feeling the grit of dirt and stubble beneath his hands—he needed a shower, and a shave.

Bucky sighed. He also needed to find someplace where he could peacefully die too.

He skipped supper in the galley, feigning sleep in his hammock when Clint crawled down through the cooling vents to check on him. He left after a few seconds of considerate silence. The lights dimmed a few good hours later, signalling curfew. JARVIS alerted the crew that the ship was cruising on auto-pilot, subjecting Bucky to a vacuum of noise and sound.

He closed his eyes and willed for sleep to come.

It wasn’t long before Bucky was gasping awake, thrashing so wildly that one of the hammock’s fastenings was ripped clean out of the ceiling. He fell onto the hard floor with an unceremonious thud. Bucky groaned—more out of frustration and exhaustion than pain, although his shoulder ached on the force of the impact.

Bucky raised himself onto his hands and knees, quietly asking JARVIS how long before the routine wake-up call would blare though the in-built speakers.

“Four more hours, sir.” He replied calmly, albeit softly to assuage Bucky’s shame. “I detect an accelerated heartbeat and tremoring, perhaps I could suggest—”

“No.” He replied sharply. After a beat JARVIS added, “Thank you.”

“As you wish, Barnes.”

He allowed the silence to lapse before asking, “Where are the showers in this joint?”

JARVIS directed him towards the communal bathroom on the upper level, and Bucky was careful not to wake his crewmates up so early. He didn’t need to give them any plausible reason to hate him just yet—night terrors, moody silences and a chequered past would guarantee him that eventually.

He halted at the door marked BTH-RM and reached for the nearby button to open. Ever stealthy, Bucky tripped over an outstretched set of legs as he crossed the threshold inside. Strong, golden arms reached out to steady him, pulling him close to soften his fall on the multi-coloured tiled floor.

Bucky cursed like a SHIELD runner on leave on impact, metal arm having already shot outwards to grab purchase on his descent—his fingers twined in the thin fabric of a shirt, jerking the other person closer. He hit the ground in a jumble of legs and arms, hissing at the ensuing awkwardness that would assuredly follow.

He heard laboured panting, feeling the heat of the other person’s breath condense on his exposed neck. A strained voice spoke, “Stars. You okay there?” It was deep, masculine, and oddly enough, brimming with an ease of warmth.

“Shit. No.” He tried disentangling himself from the man he was currently fused to.

“Oh, wait, let me—”

Bucky felt himself lift as the unfamiliar man gathered Bucky close to his chest and half-stood, depositing him against the wall opposite and stepping back. Bucky may have read the situation wrong—but he though the man lingered, hands wrapped loosely around Bucky’s wrists, face dipped close to his.

Once his touch and body heat had retreated, Bucky realised with a jolt that that was probably the most human touch he’d received in a very long time. Finally, he stopped looking down and glanced at the man who’d claimed his prior position sitting below the sink.

Truth be told, Bucky wasn’t expecting Tony’s illusive first mate to be the most beautiful person on-board. Beneath creased cotton pyjama pants and a pale singlet his skin was sun-kissed and smooth, the tight fit of his clothes revealing a large, muscular frame. Broad shoulders tapered to a trim waist. His hair was blond and in need of a good shear, damp tendrils curling over his forehead and masking the bright blue of his eyes—it was Earth blue, the colour belonging to unseen skies and oceans.

“Steve,” he held out his hand, a brittle but not hostile smile at the ready. “First mate. And the only person with enough marbles to fly this heap.”

Bucky shook his hand shakily—using his metal appendage to gauge his reaction.

Steve didn’t even bat an eyelash and proceeded to grip his sensory-attuned fingers in a firm grip, squeezing.

“Bucky. Mechanic.” He didn’t know why he used his real name, or why he felt like he needed Steve to know.

Steve nodded once, allowing his head to rest on the sink basin behind him. It was a comfortable lapse in conversation, although not natural—they hadn’t known each other long enough for it to be so. Bucky’s gaze searched the strong lines of Steve, acutely noting the dark ink of a tattoo on his left bicep—the image a cruel parody to Bucky’s.

“Ex-military, huh?” Bucky was curious—or just stupid, you pick.

Steve raised his arm to look blandly at the SHIELD insignia and platoon number branded beneath. “Trialled a new experimental drug. Spent too long in the Intergalactic Corps. Made Captain. Got caught up in a freak cryo-sleep accident and when I woke up my entire platoon were either dead or old. My best girl made it to the Inner Provinces about sixty years ago and I don’t plan on surprising her anytime soon. Was honourably discharged before jumping from transport boats to fuel ports to moon stations until I met Tony. And here I am, ninety-five and piloting a ship that should’ve been salvaged about three civil wars ago.”

Only air escaped Bucky’s open mouth. “Well, shit.”

Steve lifted a large shoulder. “You win some, you lose some.” He aimed for flippancy but missed the mark, a dark undertone cutting through his weak façade. “And you?”

“Ex-Hydra,” he said, motioning vaguely at the metal arm. “Used to be an engineer. Had a place in the Inner Provinces until the company went under. No family, no friends, no home.”

Steve nodded, accepting his word as truth. Bucky startled at his reaction, absently recognising a pang of disappointment—he was expecting disbelief, reproach, maybe even morbid curiosity. 

“How do you like the place so far?” Steve prompted.

Bucky was sure he hadn’t spoken this much in over six lunar cycles, but for once, he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to turn away and ignore Steve. He didn’t want to lie or cheat or pretend. Out of the entire crew, Steve was the only way who felt genuine and real—and also broken in the most human way possible.

“A little shabby, but…”

“Something a little too close to a home?”

Bucky avoided his reassuring blue gaze. “Or something.”

Steve opened his mouth before shaking his head, getting to his feet. Bucky wanted to ask him to stay, to keep him company for a few moments longer, but the words caught in his throat. His mind went blank. His heart faltered.

Repressing the swell of emotion in his chest, Bucky told himself that he didn’t want Steve, that he didn’t need anyone. He’d be sent packing in a few lunar cycles anyway, and it’s not like Steve would ever be interested in someone more than damaged than him. It’s not like Steve would ever see anything good or kind in him—Bucky wasn’t worth much more than contempt or revulsion.

If Steve noticed his change in demeanour, he didn’t say anything. “You can find me on the observation deck most nights when I can’t sleep.” He stopped at the door as it slid open with a metallic grind, his hand resting on the rectangle frame. “I take warm showers whenever I wake up choking on ice. It makes me forget what it was like to be trapped in a glass coffin for seventy years, at least for a few minutes.” His tone was gentle.

“Why are you doing this?” Bucky asked tenuously, hating how weak he sounded. He wasn’t looking at Steve; instead his gaze was solely trained on the flesh-and-metal fingers hanging between his bent knees.

“Because I went to war too, Bucky. I know.”

Once Steve was safely out of distance, Bucky rushed to the nearest toilet and heaved up his empty stomach. All warmth had fled his body, returning to its usual hollow shell. Hot tears slid down his cheeks—a biological reaction rather than an emotional response.

“Steve advised me to keep an eye on you if your symptoms for post-traumatic stress disorder persist.” JARVIS announced, his voice jarring amidst the rush of memories Bucky was internally witnessing in a broken reel—blades sawing through flesh, metal nerves wired to bone, his cryogenic chamber closing shut as clouds of ice enveloped his naked body.

Bucky felt the toilet lid crumple beneath his destructive grip.

Steve was speaking, whispering close to his ear— _I know, I know, I know._

“No, you don’t.” Bucky panted, fear curdling his insides. Numbing his senses. “You don’t know, you can’t know, you—” The words eluded him, his head filled with deafening white noise.

 _You don’t know what it’s like to kill people you don’t know, you don’t what it’s like to forget your sisters name, you don’t know what it’s like to be inexplicably tied to blood and war and death_ —

Bucky remained curled on the bathroom floor, willing the hum of the ship’s auxiliary systems would lull him to sleep, but to no avail. The vivid images eventually subsided, the tightness of Bucky’s grip in his hair lessening. He raised himself onto his knees shakily, falling back against the stall heavily. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, suppressing the urge to dry retch, and stumbled to his feet.

Bucky halted at the sink, hunching over the grimy basin, absently asking JARVIS how much longer he had before he was expected on the galley—two hours at the most. He splashed a handful of water over his face and straightened, noting the deathly pallor of his skin.

Bucky sighed. Whatever hope he’d harboured in maybe pursuing anything remotely romantic with Steve were promptly dashed. His hair had grown past his shoulders in dank brown strands, dark streaks of grease stark against his pale skin, and his clothes were in terrible condition—tattered and ripped in places, unwashed.

He started to disrobe and ran a current of scalding hot water in the shower before stepping under the steady downpour. The water was slightly brackish but heavenly nonetheless, and Bucky made quick work of scrubbing himself clean. Dressed in his lone pair of pants, he scavenged surgical scissors in the medicine cabinet above the sink to jaggedly trim the ends of his hair. He inelegantly tied it up and threw his used shirt on before making his way to the galley.

The portly psychiatrist was standing at the stove amidst an assortment of mismatched utensils. The open galley was parallel to a large oak table were seven chairs had been hastily situated. A circle of well-worn couches and chairs were located at the base of the table before leading off to a spiral staircase—the observation deck—and an open hallway—the crew quarters, bathroom and cockpit.

“Coffee?” Bruce held a pot of sloshing dark liquid out on offer.

“Industrial strength.” He was surprised he could form coherent words. Bucky slid onto one of the waiting island stools, watching the woollen sweater move across the smaller man’s back as he reached for a spare mug.

“Steve talked to me. And for what it’s worth,” he held out a steaming ceramic mug without looking Bucky directly in the eye, “my door’s always open.”

Steve’s business-like voice rung throughout the ship’s speakers, soothing anyone’s fears as the ship tipped forward and he took manual control of steering. Bucky was thankful for the distraction—and Bruce didn’t press him any further. He stared at the chipped orange rim of the mug. Throwing his head back, he repressed a flinch as the bitter artificial flavouring slid hotly down his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although I was inspired following a viewing of The Martian to write epic tales of romance in space between two very gay super soldiers, this is more of a Firefly/Serenity AU if you really, really squint.


	2. Jaynestown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bucky,” Steve whispered roughly, tongue wetting his lips.
> 
> The mechanic leaned forward, pressing his shoulder into Steve’s chest until he could feel the steady thrum of Steve’s heartbeat. He didn’t have any control of his body; it was acting purely on base instinctual need, pulling on the unseen thread that bound him and Steve.

Bucky glimpsed a pair of feet enter his vision under the hefty engine. He clenched his jaw. Barely three days in and the sheer amount of human contact he was experiencing was putting him on edge.

“My favourite mechanic, how’s ol’ JARVIS coming?” Tony asked, Bucky’s line of sight restricted to the captain hooking a boot over his ankle. His voice sounded vaguely slurred, like he was talking around something in his mouth—Bucky almost snorted at the connotation.

Bucky slid out on a rundown skateboard, staring flatly at his captain. “I’m your only mechanic.”

“That’s beside the point.”

He sighed. “That syphoned fuel really did a number on the engine. It struggled working overtime to compensate for the extra weight than it would with a Hydra jet.” Bucky waved a distracted hand. “It shouldn’t actually be so hot in here; the reactors are just—”

“Captain, there’s an asteroid belt two light years south of—” Steve came to a halt at the threshold of the engine room, staring down at Bucky over the compact electronic tablet in his hands.

Bucky become acutely aware of the fact he did forgo whatever clothes he had for a number of Clint’s overalls, choosing today to wear his threadbare singlet, knotting his blue overalls low on his waist. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, knowing his hair had long since escaped its messy ponytail, and that his skin was red with exertion and oily with perspiration and grease.

Whereas Steve was a shining example of cleanliness—dark grey pants, a buttoned jacket with white lines circling his cuffs, golden hair brushed into a neat comb over. Bucky breathed deeply through his noise, determinedly avoiding to focus on the breadth of Steve’s shoulders beneath the stretched fabric of his jacket or the large span of his hands.

“Steve,” Tony said, rolling the candy over his teeth, “met Barnes.”

“We’ve met.” Steve said. He seemed reluctant to drag his gaze from Bucky, Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in Steve’s throat.

“Oh, have we now?”

Bucky allowed himself to breathe once Steve’s glanced at Tony, schooling his expression. “I do live within a confined space with you and six other people, Captain. It’s pretty hard to miss running into someone every five minutes, especially when that someone’s so—” Unfortunately, Steve cut himself short, his cheeks painted in a red blush.

Tony’s face split into a blinding grin, jubilant mirth shining in his eyes. “When that someone’s so what?” He implored, titling his head to the side in question.

“Nothing, Captain,” Steve said in a clipped, professional tone. He dared to glance meekly at Bucky once before his head snapped back to Tony—the mere sight of the sweaty mechanic was punishment enough.

Bucky shifted on his skateboard, wishing he knew what to say—that he could form more than a string of inarticulate words together. His lips parted to speak and Steve’s shoulders lifted marginally as if he was anticipating him to speak, but instead Bucky slid under the exposed engine. He cursed under his breath, hidden from view, listening to Steve and Tony debate optimal flight patterns before both their feet departed the room.

Bucky’s defeated groan echoed loudly throughout the room, followed by a fleshy thud as he hit his forehead against the fuel cylinder. Several hours later, Bucky was dreading future social interaction with _anyone_ on this boat, but he had to eat. He unbuckled his heavy engineer boots and ran a damp washcloth over the back of his neck and face before trekking to the galley.

Natasha was balancing on the edge of the island bench, Clint situated next to her on a spindly stool. A golden-coloured dog was resting at his feet. Thor was lounging on a couch across the room, the cushions dipping dangerously low to the ground beneath his weight. He was intensely reading a small paperback.

“Cyborg,” Clint used the nickname flippantly, “looks like you finally decided to grace us with your presence. All we got was a half-baked story from Bruce about your affinity for bitter coffee so far.”

Bucky made a mental note to thank Bruce later—for not telling the others about his brief midnight interlude with Steve—if he ever worked up the nerve to openly speak to him.

“Didn’t you know that Hydra engineers only run on coffee and motor fuel?” Bucky reached for the coffee pot, turning his back to the married couple to mask the slight tremor in his hands.

Clint’s silence caused Bucky’s grip to falter, forcing him to place the mug on the kitchen countertop as not to completely drop it. With a hesitant trepidation, he turned to look apprehensively at the two amused individuals behind him.

“Was that a joke?” Clint’s face remained expressionless.

Bucky nodded, swallowing thickly.

Clint suddenly burst into a riotous bout of laughter, his shoulder shaking with the force of it. His dog—he remembered Tony calling it Lucky once before—clambered up at the sudden noise, excited. Natasha raised an appraising eyebrow at her husband’s actions, reaching down to scratch Lucky’s head fondly.

“Stop torturing him, you two.” Bucky could feel the deep hum of Steve’s voice reverberate through his marrow, turning to stare at the pilot. Steve was leaning against the kitchen counter; dressed warm and casual in well-worn civilian attire, like a photo that was soft around the edges. Suddenly Bucky was highly aware of the lack of personal space between them, and he quickly stepped back, the spoon clattering in his mug loudly.

Almost a little too coincidentally, at that exact moment Clint dropped onto the floor to rub Lucky’s stomach as Nat slinked over to Thor, seated on the high-backed chair beside him.

“You okay?” Steve asked, dipping his chin to look Bucky levelly in the eye.

Panic clawed at Bucky’s throat, the claustrophobic walls crushing in on him. Steve recognised the half-wild glint in his eyes and laid his hands over Bucky’s, steadying his shaking fingers. Bucky closed his eyes tightly and counted backwards from ten in his head. He focused on the warmth of Steve’s hands, cataloguing the lines and callouses of his palms, the pressure of his fingers.

His thinly clothed back prickled under another tentative touch.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” His voice was hoarse.

“Tell me what you did today, with the engine. How’d you fix it?”

Bucky started talking about the multiple processes he’d completed in stripping the engine and servicing the working mechanics, searching for faults in the system. His speech was initially stilted and raspy, but it soon flowed in interrupted lines of engineering jargon, detailing things Steve couldn’t possibly know about. Eventually—after he’d started looking at Steve’s hands over his instead of the back of his eyelids—he offered Steve a watery smile.

“You okay?” Steve repeated, his tone reassuring.

“Not okay. But better.” Once again, Bucky didn’t know why he was speaking so bluntly to someone he’d just met, but Steve… He wanted to trust Steve. He wanted to know him.

Although he’d balked from any connection—usually physical, rarely emotional—in countless lunar cycles, Bucky’s feelings were rapidly developing on a deeper, base level. But it wasn’t simple infatuation or lust—in fact, Bucky was terrified to name exactly what it was.

“You want me to bring supper down to your quarters?” Steve asked gently.

Bucky nodded after a beat’s hesitance. He stepped back from Steve, coffee in-hand, keenly attuned to how Steve’s strong, sure fingers slipped from his grasp. On the floor, Clint flashed him a fleeting smile on his way past, holding Lucky’s prone body in his arms. Bucky flicked a distracted hand in his direction.

Once he was safely hidden in the confines of the engine room, Bucky sat with his back against the wall. He still felt like he was tearing at the seams, but when he raised the mug to his lips, he noticed how his hands didn’t tremble.

Later, with his head resting in the cradle of his arms, knees pulled close to his chest, Bucky heard the tinny echo of approaching footsteps. A small burst of something warm and pleasurable—joy maybe—spread outwards from his chest, but the emotion dimmed as he recognised the lighter tread didn’t belong to Steve.

Clint appeared at the doorway bearing gifts—two plates of heaping food and Lucky. Although Bucky could barely manage more than a weak grimace, Clint’s grin remained. He sat cross-legged beside the mechanic, a contented Lucky at his side, proceeding to deal out the meals between the two of them.

They ate in slow, companionable silence, knees brushing whenever they shifted in their seats. Clint was the first to speak, “Steve wanted to come, trust me, but something on the flight console started beeping and Tony may be a captain, but he’s no pilot.”

Bucky’s chuckle was dry and pathetic.

“He likes you,” Clint commented quietly.

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“That never mattered to Steve. He’s like Lucky here,” the ex-mechanic-turned-cook slung an arm around his faithful companion, “he reads people. He can tell what they’re like before they have the chance to figure it out.”

Bucky didn’t speak—couldn’t speak. He pushed the boiled orange vegetable around on his plate, tracing the intricate oriental patterns of the crockery with his fork. His head thumped against the sheeted metal wall, the plate resting abandoned in his lap.

Clint polished off his meal, allowing Lucky to absently lick the ceramic scraps clean before leaving Bucky to ruminate over the day’s events. He said something about joining them for a card game of Howling Commandos later, but it fell on deaf ears.

The hazy drag of sleep caused Bucky’s eyelids to drop, and soon he was stretched out on the flat, hard floor surface. He drifted into an easy slumber to the mechanical whirr of the engine; his hands uncommonly warm with the memory of another’s.

As expected, he jerked awake much too soon. Bucky panted in the thick darkness, the lights dim and the air sweltering. He was on his feet in second, swaying with disorientation. Bucky stumbled through the ship’s corridors, searching for the bathroom, for a reprieve from the burning cold of his nightmares.

He paused at the entrance to the open hallway on the upper deck, lingering on the border of the galley, staring at the spiral staircase. He glanced up, glimpsing a pair of booted feat on the observation deck—it had to be Steve, it couldn’t be anyone else.

Bucky ignored the pang of longing, of yearning, in his chest and blindly pushed into the bathroom.

It wasn’t hard to fall into a pattern afterwards. The daily life on-board JARVIS followed a lax routine—three square meals a day, four hours of hyperspace and eight solid hours sleep, the remaining time spent at your leisure. There was no rigid work schedule, but it was expected you did your assigned task without delay.

Bucky wasn’t troubled by the endless list of jobs that needed his attention, or how he constantly reeked of engine fuel and sweat, or that he tried to skip every meal to no avail. He was glad he could return to his hammock tired and spent. He’d be busy—idle hands are the devil’s work, as dirt colonists said. But what irked him most of all was the established community within JARVIS.

The ship dynamics were one of the first things he’d noticed. Bucky’d made note of who didn’t like who—literally no one—and the social hierarchy—Tony had the final say, by default. There was no structure on this boat, no set rules to abide by, and it unnerved Bucky.

Although, he had learnt a few things—how to read their personalities.

Tony was loud and obnoxious, so obviously projecting that it could’ve almost been considered heartbreaking—and his expensive cybernetic chest implant didn’t escape Bucky’s eye.  Natasha and Clint worked on the same base cellular level, one sloppily happy and the other astringently aloof, but they sought one another when darkness clouded their eyes. Bruce was kind and soft-spoken, although he put considerable distance between himself and others with a universe-worn weariness. Thor always looked out of windows, always searching for something, and he drew runic words and signs over the long oak table in the galley when his nostalgic longing had reached its peak.

And Steve—the war hero who’d lost everything, the pilot, the first mate.

Bucky hesitantly looked at him over the table—out of everything on the ship, the only thing to follow a strict code was seating arrangements at meals. Tony sat at the head, Bruce positioned opposite him to send the captain reproachful looks whenever his behaviour was deemed too rowdy. Oddly enough, Bucky was spaciously seated next to Clint and Lucky on Tony’s right. Steve was on Tony’s left, followed by Natasha and Thor.

So, three times a day without fail, Bucky would be subject to sharing the same cramped feet space as Steve. The blond didn’t seem to mind, usually knocking his boots aside playfully, or sending him evanescent half-smiles whenever Tony stated that _whoever is playing footsies better stop now or I’ll get my hat._

Bucky knew that Steve would usually talk to Tony about flight schematics, or to Bruce whenever Clint was lunging across the table to reach for the last sweetroll, or to Natasha between bites. Sometimes he would see Steve turn to him in his peripheral vision, and that his mouth would open if he was ready to speak, but their conversation never surpassed perfunctory hellos and goodbyes.

Until today, it seemed—one whole lunar cycle later.

“Buck, can you join me in the cockpit?” Steve asked him when they were in the midst of clearing the table. Bucky’s head snapped up at the first sound of his voice, but his awkward response was interrupted shortly.

Thor choked on a cup of heady swill, golden dregs of booze spraying out across the table. Steve looked at him sharply, spurring Natasha into taking the large man’s elbow and steering him towards the sink. Even when Steve had returned his attention to Bucky, he noticed Clint subtly elbow Thor in the side, murmuring something wicked about “cockpits”.

“So?” Steve prompted, the corners of his mouth threatening to lift in a smile.

Bucky faltered, trying to process exactly what Steve had been asking of him.

“It’s fine, Barnes,” Bruce said helpfully from the galley. “Thor still owes me one from the last game of Howling Commandos he lost. He can take washing duty tonight.”

Swallowing, Bucky picked at the frayed cuffs of his stained overalls, nodding mutely. Steve raised his hand in an aborted movement before stepping backwards, walking to the cockpit in unbroken strides. Natasha wolf-whistled under breath as Bucky passed into the front hallway, reached self-consciously to his sloppy half-bun, trying to smooth the errant strands of hair. He followed Steve past the crew quarters, noting that Steve’s door was closest to the cockpit before ducking his head upon entering the foremost ship compartment.

It was smaller than he imagined, compact and personalised with the crew’s various personal effects. Two large flight consoles and corresponding piloting chairs were bolted to the ground, with a generous 180° view of the void stretching out in front of them. Steve settled in the right chair, motioning for Bucky to take the left. He opted for leaning against the flight console instead.

“What am I looking at here?”  Bucky asked once he noticed he and Steve were currently staring at a delightful scene of utter blackness.

“Give me a second here, miracles take time.”

“Miracles?”

Steve shot him a rueful glance. “Or something like it. Hold on.”

The pilot flicked a few buttons and switches—Bucky may have been able to fix ships, but only Steve could fly them—before gripping the helm, taking manual control JARVIS. Bucky loosely gripped a manual hold above, unprepared for the short burst of acceleration as Steve levered the bow downwards, turbines rotating into position to propel the boat forward.

Bucky was jostled to the side, feet spreading outwards in an effort to brace himself against the sway of the ship’s momentum. His hand shot out to grip the back of the unoccupied pilot’s chair, seeking purchase. Steve quickly glanced at him—his grin was a flash of white in the space-dark light of the cockpit. Bucky tried to catch a glimpse of Steve before realising the edges of his own mouth were stretched tight, curving into his own wide smile.

“You could’ve warned me,” Bucky said sometime later, desperately trying to remain steady on his feet.

“I did!” Steve laughed airily—oh and stars, Bucky never wanted to forget that sound. His warm, baritone laughter subsided as his radar beeped sharply. He pulled the helm upwards in a gradual lift to slow JARVIS’ flight speed.

“What is it?” Bucky asked.

“Just a piece of debris. You might want to—” His radar beeped shrilly and suddenly Steve was lurching to the side, causing Bucky to lose his tenuous balance all together.

Bucky heard Tony’s muffled cry of far-away surprise before he tipped to the left, reaching out to grasp empty air before hitting Steve’s chair and falling. He hit a wall of solid flesh—his fingers met an unbuttoned cuff and held—before Steve jerked backwards again, taking Bucky with him as he pulled the ship to a jarring stop. He asked JARVIS to retake control, steering the boat at a cruising pace.

Steve’s breath was hot and loud in his ear, his arms braced around Bucky, still clasping the helm tightly. Bucky turned his head to look at the pilot, banging their heads together painfully.  Steve’s hands went to rub the red bridge of his nose, muttering something expletory before looking at Bucky, the glint—of pain? wry amusement?—in his gaze replaced with something deeper, quieter.

“What?” The mechanic whispered. Bucky noticed the golden and healthy sheen of Steve’s skin, a little sallow beneath his eyes but still reminding him of sunburnt fields of corn and yellow suns on more developed colonist planets.

Bucky felt a hand move to his waist, five points of light pressure against the thin fabric of his overalls. Steve’s stare hadn’t relented; a fact that made his heart beat faster in his chest. The pilot shifted in his seat, causing their heads to knock together again, lighter, more deliberate. Steve’s gaze dropped to Bucky’s lips at his sharp intake of breath, his Adams apple bobbing. Bucky stared as his hand moved without direction, trailing up from Steve’s open collar to the exposed skin of his neck.

“Bucky,” Steve whispered roughly, tongue wetting his lips.

The mechanic leaned forward, pressing his shoulder into Steve’s chest until he could feel the steady thrum of Steve’s heartbeat. He didn’t have any control of his body; it was acting purely on base instinctual need, pulling on the unseen thread that bound him and Steve.

“Hey, Steve, you and the kid okay?” Tony asked, appearing at the cockpit’s door, only slightly concerned following JARVIS’ erratic flying patterns. He stared at the two of them shrewdly; his face was momentarily blank for a second before something devious took root. “Oh, looks like someone’s thrusters were definitely on. So that’s why we were bouncing all over the place, because you two were necking in the pilot’s seat.”

Bucky was quick to clamber out of Steve’s lap, inwardly flinching at Steve’s hurt reaction to the abruptness of his actions. He put a substantial but not massively large amount of space between them, trying to determine the appropriate distance. Tony reached up to swing on the metal doorframe as he gleefully watched the love story unfold between his pilot and ship mechanic.

“Do you guys want some alone time? I can leave, y’know?” Tony was revelling in his chance to poke fun at them both, despite how Steve’s blush deepened innocently. Bucky was able to handle the suggestive attention and jibes little better, but not by much.

“Tony, look portside and you’ll see why I bought Bucky up here for in the first place.” Steve said, expertly deflecting from anything involving _Bucky in his lap_.

“Yeah, sure—” Tony did as he was bid and—for once—was rendered speechless. He whistled softly.

Bucky followed his line of sight, exhaling as he glimpsed the large, gaseous cloud of explosive light and colour. It had to be something out his dreams—the good ones, the false ones he had when he was no more Hydra’s puppet. Bucky took a tentative step forward, fingers brushing the glass to reverently trace the haze of green and blues and purple surrounding a bright golden core.

“What is it?” Bucky heard himself ask distantly.

“A planetary nebula.”

“Don’t the others want to see it?”

“I was going to tell him, I just…”

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at Steve’s nervous tone, confusion furrowing his brow. He obstinately wouldn’t meet the mechanic’s eyes, shifting awkwardly in his seat.

“He just wanted to show you first,” Tony supplied, his voice oddly serious. Before Bucky had enough time to process the meaning behind Tony’s words, or the bottom lip caught beneath Steve’s teeth, the pilot was leaning forward to activate the intercom.

“Guys, come up to the pilot’s station, we got something to show you.”

Bucky noticed how a perplexed expression flitted across Tony’s face briefly, although he was quick to mask it with a thinly veiled smile at the sound of Clint’s urgent approach. He jerked to a halt at the open door to the cockpit, the remaining crew blocked by their stupefied cook.

“I haven’t seen one of them up close in years,” Thor admitted a little breathlessly.

They all piled into the small room, Bruce and Tony lingering in the back, Steve and Bucky still in their respective pilot’s seats and the remaining three and dog sitting on the ground. Bucky tried to focus on the glorious explosion of colour in front of him, awestruck by how the ship interior was streaked in colourful watery light from the nebula, but he kept turning back to Steve. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately—turning back to Steve, searching for him.

Although Steve soon stood up, announcing his overdue return to his bunk, catching Bucky’s eye across the room despite himself. He smiled warmly before swiftly averting his eyes, ducking out of the room. The sight of empty pilot’s seat seemed a little too desolate for his liking, but Bucky decided that witnessing one of space’s greatest spectacles was better than mourning the loss of a man he hardly knew.

Bruce and Tony followed Steve half an hour later, the beauty of science quickly fading in their space-accustomed eyes. Bucky soon gravitated to the floor between Thor and Natasha, seated in front of the window. Clint slept soundly on the redhead’s other side, Lucky’s head resting on his stomach.

“Can you see that constellation there?” Thor asked Bucky after a few moments spent gazing dopily at the nebula. He pointed somewhere to the right.

“You mean that star, the seven-millionth one, third row down?”

Natasha—who was laying on her stomach, feet kicked up into the air—snorted softly at Bucky’s lame attempt at a joke. She elbowed him jokingly in the thigh and said, “Play nice.”

Bucky had talked to her the least, and besides Clint, it seemed she shared the next deepest connection with Steve on-board. He could recognise the scars of old wound she bore—the flinch at loud noises and the quick assessment of all exit points in each room—but she was reassuringly calm. Her ever-present composure was admirable.

“Sorry, Thor,” Bucky apologised, turning to the unfazed blond. “I’ll try again.”

He grinned broadly. Bucky almost felt obliged to smile back at such an unreserved display of friendliness. “Okay, so do you see that small cluster of four stars…”

The night drifted onwards, until the lights dimmed at curfew and Natasha shepherded her husband and dog into bed with a tired wave to Bucky and Thor. But Bucky remained with Thor for the better part of the night, pointing out each constellation they could find, attentively listening to the man explain the origin of its name. He briefly explained the science of nebulas and the conceptions of planets, stopping in his fervent monologue once he looked at Bucky’s baffled expression and laughed softly.

Thor admitted that he only knew so much about astropsychics because of his fiancée. He sounded dull for the first time that night, his glowing inner warmth darkening. Bucky glanced at him questioningly but didn’t press the subject.

“I love her, but I couldn’t stand another Earthen solar cycle in the Inner Provinces.”

Bucky bowed his head, wishing he knew what to say.

“Do you ever feel like you can’t escape something, no matter how far you run?”

His reply was instantaneous: “Yes.” After a thoughtful moment’s thought, he added, “But I also know that there’s a time when you have to stop running. And you have to face whatever it was that scared you.”

Thor didn’t smile, but his eyes shone softly in the dim. It wasn’t a glint of anger or pity, it was gratitude. He reached forward and laid a large, comforting hand on Bucky’s shoulder—and for once he didn’t instinctually want to shy out of the touch.

Bucky realised then that maybe he had underestimated his fellow crewmates.

The next day, the pulled into a fuel port on a barren hunk of space rock called Jaynestown. Moon settlements were always rural locations and the price of go-go juice—as Tony put it—was horribly overpriced, but the entire crew were all feeling the effects of cabin fever.

“You coming to the markets?” Steve asked Bucky amidst the excited rush of noise—animated conversations and the hiss of air as the loading ramp dropped below. All six of them were biding their time in the galley as Tony paid a few UCs for the mooring space and proper refuelling with the dockmaster.

“Maybe.” Bucky answered truthfully.

He noticed how Steve had scrubbed up real nice in haste to step onto solid ground, dressed in a grey T-shirt, fitted pants and olive green greatcoat whose burnished gold buttons gleamed. Bucky had even forgone his usual lowly ship mechanic’s ensemble for a sleeveless leather jacket that revealed the strong metal length of his arm, with thick straps reaching across his chest to buckle at his side. He wore slim charcoal-coloured cargo pants and heavy, knee-high engineer boots. His dark hair was washed and combed, framing the lean, handsome lines of his face in a low ponytail.

“You should.” Steve’s smile was slow and secret, his face tipped towards Bucky’s. “I’ll save a pint for you in Colonel Phillip’s joint. It’s the best tavern in the Western Quadrant.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Thrusters on, Bucky.”

Bruce stopped him at the threshold of the carbo bay, restraining him from stepping outside. Bucky’s brows furrowed as he watched Steve’s retreating back disappear amongst the writhing mass of the crowd, forever lost in the fray of the markets. He dejectedly looked at the smaller man next to him, not quite angry but dangerously frustrated.

“I know he likes you—”

_Stars._ “People have _got_ to stop telling me that.”

“But he likes everyone.” Bruce said shortly, losing his usual gentle tact. “And I honestly don’t know if you plan on leaving this fuel port or the next one or never, but if your future does involve Steve in any way, shape or form, I don’t want you to—”

“He’s a grown man, Banner.” He snapped. “Steve can make his own choices. I don’t control him.” Bucky’s tone was cutthroat, his hackles raised defensively.  He may like Steve—a little more than he should, really—but he did not want to fight Bruce on this.

Bruce sighed heavily. “I was talking about you.”

Bucky’s anger was quickly replaced with confusion, feeling as if he was stripped of all defences.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself—or Steve—by pursuing something that you know will never work out.” At Bucky’s slightly terrified expression, Bruce continued, “Steve was in a bad place for a very long time. He’s prone to a lot of self-blame. And you’re one of the first people he ever showed any… interest in. It’s pretty obvious to the entire crew except our resident pilot that you like him too, but mutual physical attraction is not a healthy basis for a long-time relationship.”

“How do you know I want that?” Bucky aimed for a clipped, brusque question, but it fell flat. Terror replaced fury. Insecurity replaced hostility.

“Don’t we all want stability in our life?” Bruce’s smile was heartbreakingly soft, like he too had desperately sought something tangible and solid. Like he’d resigned himself to a life that didn’t include happiness.

“So what are you saying, Bruce?”

The man smiled at the sound his own name, like it was a step in the right direction—the sentiment warming something in Bucky’s chest despite how trivial it seemed. “I’m saying that I want to trust you. That I believe you and Steve are cut from the same cloth, and that you’re probably soul mates in some other alternate dimension. That if you do end up crossing the bridge then you’ll probably do more for him than I or Nat ever could.”

“But?” Bucky implored after a heavy silence.

“There are no buts, Bucky.” Bruce said morosely, like he was saddened by the fact Bucky hadn’t figured it out himself. “You just don’t give yourself enough credit, because despite all of this, I think the only reason you’re not bunking with him right now is because you don’t think you’re worth him.”

Bucky toed the metal grating with his boot—he was grateful and irritated for Bruce’s advice, but his actions were still laden with an inner conflict. He wanted to leave just as desperately as he wanted to stay. His desire to kiss Steve was just as strong as his fear of ever touching him.

He shook his head, momentarily dislodging the thought of Steve. Bucky didn’t know why he’d ever thought Bruce would wrongly judge him—the ship’s psychiatrist was characterised by soft words and kind hands, unobtrusive and disarmingly gentle.

Bruce nodded, retreating into the bowels of the ship once it became clear Bucky wasn’t ready to speak. “My offer still stands on my door being open though.”

Bucky’s smile was fleeting but genuine. “Anytime.”

Bucky didn’t find Steve in the end, but turns out he had also doubted Thor again, especially his detailed knowledge about moon culture and the geological study of sterile rock. Anything thing on offer in the Jaynestown markets that Bucky showed the slightest amount of interest in Thor had offered to buy, but he always refused. The large blond probably owned a fortune in UCs. He must’ve had three times the education Bucky ever did on his home planet too, judging by the way he spiritedly talked about things that Bucky could barely understand.

He realised he missed it—his childhood home, that is. Seven generations had long since colonised the planet until the initial allure of mining new resources and cultivating land had faded, but Bucky longed to return to feel the sway of grain beneath his fingertips or the heat of sunlight on his face. He sighed, still feeling unnerved and tired following Bruce’s intervention, but better, like the experience had been cathartic.

When Thor was deeply involved in a conversation concerning antique collectible telescopes with a merchant Bucky bid his farewell before treading back to JARVIS, weaving through the maze of market stalls. Fuel ports on moon stations were rarely anything significant to visit, but they had character.

People talked in rounded syllables and laughed easily. Kids painted vibrant murals of forests and savannahs on cement walls and used empty shotgun cartridges to make sculptures. The streets were filtered with a harsh blue light at every corner, pale greens illuminating the docks and most tavern signs. It was dark and dank, but charismatic in its own kitsch way.

Bucky leisurely boarded JARVIS, loitering in the cargo bay before shaking his head and starting towards the crew quarters. He paused once again at the door, his fingers raised to press the button to open. If he did this he’d never be able to go back—but Bucky had to, he _wanted_ to. His fingertip quickly pushed the small red disc and sonorous droning beep filled the compartment on the other side of the door.

The entrance slid open to reveal a sleep-rumpled Bruce. “Hi, Bucky.”

Bucky’s confidence wavered, but he held strong. “Hey. Um, you said something about your door being open, right?”

Bruce’s smile was reassuring, his expression almost prideful. “Yeah, I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I should mention that even though I very much like to think I'm Mark Watney, I really have no idea about space travel or ship mechanics, so please point out any glaring errors. Like, I had to search up what the hell a nebula was for this chapter since I am but a lowly dirt colonist.


	3. Making Port

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Want to know it for future reference?” Steve systematically pressed in a pattern of numbers at the door, the buttons faded with use. “The password, I mean.”
> 
> Bucky’s brow creased.
> 
> Steve snorted at the mechanic’s expression, the door to his private quarters sliding open once he’d entered the full line of code. “All I have in there are some dusty medals, boot polish and a few pictures. There’s nothing worth stealing, not that I thought you were going to anyway.” He added after an awkward, pointed cough. “The number’s 32557038, if you wanted to know.”

After a lengthy and somewhat ill-advised conversation with Bruce, it was no surprise that Bucky was liable to a restless night’s sleep. He was too emotionally raw to join the crew for supper in the galley, but Bruce quickly scouted two plates for them to eat in stilted silence in his quarters.

Bruce was infinitely patient and thoughtful, never interrupting Bucky, listening intently as Bucky spoke. Although after a few minutes the words refused to come and Bucky’s mind turned dark and insidious, so he receded far into himself. Bruce offered a few words of advice—good diet, solid sleep schedule, a reliable support system—but it passed over Bucky’s head, ringing dully in his ears.

“You okay?” Bruce asked once they had reached the door, long after the lights had dimmed.

Bucky shook his head in dismissal.

“You did good, Bucky. Progress just doesn’t happen on its own.”

“So that’s what this is? Making progress?” His words were hollow, his hands shaking.

Bruce smiled tightly. “Try getting some sleep, huh?”

He nodded mutely, turning on his heel to trek down the hallway. Bucky almost didn’t notice the redhead perched at the long oak table, absently laying out a pack of cards on the wooden surface in front of her. His actions stilled, frozen in motion.

Natasha turned to assess him curiously. She settled back in her seat, unconcerned by his haggard appearance. Bucky knew he’d become increasingly more harried as the night wore on—hands running through his long dark hair until it was in disarray, his sleek ponytail now hanging in loose hunks. His chunky jacket zip was halfway unfastened, the large buckles of his leather straps rhythmically clinking together with every step.

“Steve’s on the observation deck if you want him,” the first mate said coolly, her gaze trained on the layout of cards in front of her. “We missed you at Colonel Phillip’s tonight. Steve had a pint of the finest brew on this rock waiting.”

“Of course he did.” Bucky felt the corners of his mouth twitch, but anything even resembling a smile seemed like an impossible feat. Especially now.

He ducked his head to catch a glimpse of Steve’s booted feet in their usual position, resting by the head of the spiral staircase. Bucky swallowed, glancing at Natasha surreptitiously—out of everyone on this boat, she seemed like the only one who wasn’t trying to fix him.

Bucky was still unsure of Steve’s motives—of he perceived Bucky as a charity case or somebody equal to him—but it felt like he wanted to help him. Maybe it was just that, maybe Steve knew Bucky was broken but salvageable, not completely whole but still trying.

Bucky didn’t notice Natasha’s faint smirk as he approached the staircase for the first time since setting foot on JARVIS. He scaled the structure much too quickly, meeting Steve’s surprised gaze once he reached the observation deck.

“You finally showed up,” Steve said, voice lacking the resentfulness Bucky would’ve expected if he’d failed to deliver a promise to anyone else. Instead he seemed relieved, maybe a little worn, but still emanating with that familiar inner warmth.

“Looks like it,” Bucky replied, eyes downcast uncertainly. He sat about a quarter ways up the circular couch from Steve, a transparent dome of glass arching overhead.

“How’d you like the markets?”

“It was interesting.” Bucky crossed his arms, content to listen to Steve talk.

“Thor said he took care of you, so I’m glad you had a few moments of peace to yourself off this boat. Stars, we probably all need it.”

His mind strayed, wondering if Steve had asked about him off-hand, or if Thor had mentioned it in passing, or if Steve had deliberately sought information about him. The thought caused his stomach to knot—and he couldn’t decide if that was a bad thing or not.

“Did you buy anything?”

“No. New clothes would’ve been nice though.”

“You need extra clothes? You could’ve asked, Buck.” Steve smiled, arms resting on the back of the couch. “I’ve spent too long on this ship between fuel ports or moon stations. There are enough spares in my quarters to outfit our entire crew.”

Bucky nodded. He was grateful for a fresh change of clothes, although he was sceptical of the social inclinations of wearing something Steve had owned—even if he’d been dressed in Clint’s hand-me-downs for the better part of their travel.

“So this is the infamous observation deck?” Bucky asked, clumsily diverting the conversation and his distracting train of thought.

Steve didn’t seem dissuaded by his social skills, or lack thereof. “So it is.” Steve looked up, head tipped to the smattering of stars. The dark swath of sky glimmered with a million lights, subliminal changes in colour separating planets from far-away suns and supernovas, painting the small room in varying hues of dark, inky blue.

After a while Bucky realised that he was staring at Steve whilst Steve was staring at the stars. He flinched, leaning back on the chair rather than hunching forward, gaze reluctantly focusing on the natural phenomenon above instead of the one a few feet’s distance from him.

“Do you want to talk?” Steve asked, the abrupt question startling the mechanic.

Bucky knew he was coming off awfully jittery tonight, but his intervention with Bruce had stripped his usual defences to reveal a tender core. His heart pounded whenever Steve looked at him—and forget the overwhelming surge of emotion whenever he even dared to smile at Bucky. There was that feeling again, like he was drawn between two very different things, two very different outcomes of the next ten seconds.

“Hey,” the pilot said gently.

Bucky glanced down at the broad hand which covered his, wondering when and how Steve had breached the space between them. He looked back up at Steve, mouth opening but unable to properly from words.

“It’s okay,” Steve reassured him, fingers encircling his wrist comfortingly.

Bucky caught the cuff of Steve’s pristine jacket, grasping it tightly.

“How ‘bout we just sit here until you feel better, huh? I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve settled close to him, radiating with warmth—and kindness, and goodness, everything that Bucky instinctually shied away from in this universe. He remembered releasing Steve’s sleeve with the intention to reach for the crook of his arm, or his face, or to rest his head on Steve’s shoulder, but his hand receded. Steve noticed the loss of touch keenly; face evadingly tipped to the sky for a moment before he relented in his own actions, dropping Bucky’s hand.

Guilt and disappointment coursed through Bucky. He’d felt like he’d let Steve down, that he’d unknowingly rejected the man without thought. But Steve remained, patient and thoughtful and otherworldly in the dim starlight, far better than Bucky ever deserved.

Clenching his jaw, Bucky stared at the night sky, forcing himself not to look at Steve. But after his exhaustive conversation with Bruce, the promised lull of sleep was quick to claim him, and Bucky slipped into nothingness with the feeling of slightly rough fabric under his cheek.

When Bucky woke up his mind was clear, and his chest comfortably warm instead of hollow. He felt rested, more settled than he’d been in a while. He shifted in his sleep, seeking out the further source of warmth. It was only then he realised his body was curled into a divot of a curved couch, his head cushioned by the toned muscle of a thigh.

He jerked into a sitting position, the movement jostling Steve awake. The pilot looked startled, but the tension in his shoulders eased once he realised where he was, and why he’d been woken. Bucky shifted subtly, putting space between them. A brief emotion crossed Steve’s face, although he was quick to mask it with a tired, lopsided smile.

Steve’s collar was opened to reveal the smooth golden skin and muscle of a collarbone, and also the inviting curve of his neck where it met his shoulder. His hair was ruffled and he kept blinking to fend off the last dregs of week-old fatigue, although he looked more well-rested than Bucky had ever seen him.

Bucky glanced away, hands fisted tightly—seeing Steve so vulnerable and open made it feel intimate, like he was intruding on someone else’s scene.

“You okay? Steve asked, voice rough with sleep.

Bucky nodded in reply, swallowing thickly. His skin still tingled from the memory of the warmth and solidity of Steve’s thigh beneath his head. His fingertips almost raw and burning from where they had grazed Steve’s knee, seeking assurance even in his sleep.

“Bucky—” Steve started carefully, dipping his head to the mechanic’s, but he was interrupted by a brief burst of raucous noise downstairs.

He was quick to utilise the opportunity, rising unsteadily to his feet. Bucky wavered at the top of the stairs, hating that he knew what Steve smelled like, hating that he couldn’t erase the images of a sleep-soft Steve.

Steve halted; looking conflicted for a second—as if he’d been able to read Bucky’s desperate need to escape in his stiff profile. “Do you want to look at some of my spare clothes after breakfast?” He asked instead, casually amicable. “Or is now okay?”

“I—” Bucky’s throat was dry, raw. “After breakfast is fine.”

Steve’s smile was wide and reassuring, acting like a balm on a festering wound. He stood and approached an increasingly panicked Bucky, reaching for his elbow in a gentle hold and directing Bucky downstairs. His touch lingered once they’d reached the galley floor, fingertips separated from bare skin by a mere layer of fabric. Steve released Bucky once the entire crew were appraising the both of them, either in silent amusement, interest, or mirth.

Bucky didn’t focus on the sudden cold as Steve moved to clean his favourite mug at the sink and Bucky slid between Thor and Natasha. He was appreciative of the former’s solid promise of security and the latter’s unassuming nonchalance.

Bruce deliberately caught his eye and asked how he was faring without speaking. Clint chewed thoughtfully beside him on the counter, wisely choosing to ignore their exchange. Bucky lifted a shoulder casually, his tense muscles relaxing as he gained control of his emotions once again. Steve always made Bucky feel off-balance, like he was looming on the edge of something great and fathomless, something that had the power to rebuild of destroy him.

The whole crew ate breakfast in comfortable silence as Clint wasn’t functional until his second cup of coffee and Tony’s insomniac exhaustion wrung him out each morning. Bruce cooked up some rashers of hog in a battered frypan, even if the meat was stringy—and technically, it was still Clint’s job.

Bucky was growing used to the easy banter of the crew. Growing used to relying on people, to wanting to trust them. It was a strange feeling, foreign but not wholly unwelcome. He glanced up as Clint was showing his first signs of life, laid out on the island in front of Natasha like a lazy cat, Tony idly chatting to Thor and Bruce about some stunt he’d pulled using contraband explosives. Steve was watching him from across the galley in his usual morning position, leaning against the bench, tea held to his chest—he only drank coffee when stressed, tired, or worried.

Steve was smiling—for him, for the whole crew.

Bucky returned the gesture without even requiring thought.

Steve inclined his head in the direction of the crew quarters in silent question. The mechanic downed the remaining dregs of black tar in his coffee mug before nodding, his earlier panic having receded following the reassurance that Steve or anyone else didn’t expect more than what he was willing to give.

Bucky lingered at the edges of the galley, waiting for Steve to set his cup in the sink and lead him to his bunk. He looked to the ground as Steve approached, but he felt the solid bulk of the other man’s chest brush his side, a hand grazing the small of his back in passing. Bucky trained his gaze on the slim cut of the jacket that Steve wore, debating whether he liked the pilot to wear it loose or formfitting.

“Bucky?” Steve prompted, shaking him out of his reverie.

He had reached his door, fingertips resting on the keypad by the door. Bucky noticed the suggestive lack of space between them and feigned interest in the galley behind them, imperceptibly stepping backwards.

“Want to know it for future reference?” Steve systematically pressed in a pattern of numbers at the door, the buttons faded with use. “The password, I mean.”

Bucky’s brow creased.

Steve snorted at the mechanic’s expression, the door to his private quarters sliding open once he’d entered the full line of code. “All I have in there are some dusty medals, boot polish and a few pictures. There’s nothing worth stealing, not that I thought you were going to anyway.” He added after an awkward, pointed cough. “The number’s 32557038, if you wanted to know.”

Steve stepped into his quarters, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck as if suddenly shy. Bucky didn’t expect to enter Steve’s bunk under any pretence, either romantic or otherwise, but again he felt like he was seeing yet another glimpse of the man beneath the tailored pilot jacket and friendly, confident smile.

Bucky recalled the scattered sheets of paper in Bruce’s quarters, littered hazardously between used coffee cups strewn across the room, cluttered by books of varying sizes and wrinkled clothes. In comparison, the rectangular-shaped room which Steve resided in looked like a museum.

The scratchy wool blanket was stretched tight and neat over the mattress—Bucky was sure you could bounce an UC off it. The furniture was clean and sparse, coats and boots lining the entry wall in an orderly fashion. The practicality of the décor was almost desolate. Opposite to the door was a small, round porthole that offered a view of passing space outside, a single cot tucked to the side with a SHIELD-issue footlocker secured shut at the base of the bedframe. The unoccupied wall housed a pull-out sink and several blueprints were taped up, detailing JARVIS’ infrastructure. The remaining empty surface area was covered in a thousand sketches of far-reaching space and stars and planets scrawled onto scraps of paper in smudged charcoal, or fine lines of lead and even watery paint.

“Not much, huh?” Steve’s voice was quiet, a tremor hidden beneath his blasé façade. He lowered himself onto the bed, shoulders drooping in meek modesty. He seemed so much smaller then, like a man half his size but with a heart still as big.

Bucky’s chest ached, hand reaching for Steve’s shoulder, although he was quick to reel back in an aborted action. It seemed Steve’s think much of his artwork on the opposite wall, so Bucky didn’t plan to mention it. “What about them?” Bucky pointed to the three small pictures tacked to the clinical span of wall above his bed.

Steve managed a tremulous smile. The tension in Bucky’s chest tautened—it was no longer a matter of simple attraction, it was clear he cared for Steve. Bucky saw something pure and good in him, something that he’d thought had long since left this universe—and even if that meant never being good enough for him, Bucky wanted to do what all he could to try.

Bucky sat by the pilot, unconcerned with the minimal space they now shared, or how their knees maintained a constant point of contact. “Who’s that?” He asked, pointing at the picture closest to him.

“That’s Sam, my best friend,” Steve said fondly, staring at the snapshot of a handsome black man in full military uniform. His and Steve’s arms were looped around each other’s, hats lopsided, and wide grins frozen in time. It was the most recent photograph of all three, the surface glimmering with a bright sheen under the dull lights above, whereas the others were faded, crinkled, more of a relic.

Bucky ignored the surge of jealousy and inquired about the next photograph—it was faded and worn, depicting a blond woman attentively holding a fragile bundle in her arms.

“My Ma and me.”

“And next?”

“My men.” It was clear they were more than his charges, more than his subordinates—they were his friends. In the picture Steve was surrounded by a jubilant group of men, the pilot bent over and hand pressed to his stomach, like he’d been caught mid-laugh.

“You look happy,” Bucky commented, looking at the array of images, fingertips tracing the corner of the picture of an interlocked Steve and Sam.

“You could say that.”

At the despondent tone in Steve’s voice, Bucky ducked his head to catch the other man’s eye. He raised his chin, a forced smile contorting his features into a twisted expression. Bucky placed his hand on the bed between him and Steve, located midway between them. Carefully, tentatively, his metal fingers grazed Steve’s leg to curl around his knee.

Steve sighed heavily, leaning forward—

Before Bucky could react and pull back, Steve’s forehead was pressed to his, just resting there. Bucky breathed deeply, noticing how Steve’s eyes were closed, his mouth no more than a thin line. His metal grip tightened on Steve’s knee, a whirr of mechanics following the action, offering a steady source of steadying pressure—Steve was seeking comfort, nothing more.

“I want to—” Steve started.

“I know.”

“But not now?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah.”

When they finally pulled apart—it went no further than simple touch, of unspoken promises—a faint blush painted Steve’s cheeks red and Bucky’s pulse thudded loudly in his ears. Fingertips drifted lightly over Bucky’s cheek before Steve stood up, severing their intimate connection. The attuned sensors of the mechanic’s metal arm recognised the loss of heat.

Ignoring the emotionally-laden silence, Bucky diligently sorted through the spare clothes Steve pulled from his footlocker. The atmosphere wasn’t strained exactly, but fragile—like one word could lead to Steve’s lips on his, a hand fisted roughly in his hair. Stars, Bucky wanted that, but he knew it’d be wrong. In a role reversal of last night, Bucky knew he couldn’t take advantage of Steve’s vulnerability—that he couldn’t abuse that simple measure of trust that Steve had placed in him.

Once they’d amassed a decently sized pile of clothes, Bucky pulled off his undershirt to take a clean one from Steve. Steve was forced to look—and it took every last ounce of self-control to never stop. Bucky’s jacket dangled precariously from one shoulder, revealing the taut V line of his abdomen. Steve’s gaze flitted over the exposed, lean muscle, lingering on his tapered waist. His hair had completely escaped its ponytail to hang limply to his shoulders, brown strands grazing the gleaming metal of his left arm, counterpointed by the pale, scarred flesh of his torso.

If he stared any longer Steve knew he’d do something stupid. So he stuttered a weak half-laugh, turning to offer Bucky some privacy, fixing his gaze firmly on the ceiling. Amused, Bucky scrutinised the breadth of Steve’s shoulders and the hard line of his jaw, wondering how he would ever have cause to be modest.

“Thanks for this,” Bucky said once he was dressed.

“It’s no trouble.” Steve tried not to focus on how the mechanic looked in his oversized shirt, how the image evoked a wave of possessiveness in him.

They stopped at the closed door, waiting, breaths baited.

But the moment was shattered as JARVIS’ voice flooded the room shortly; informing them that Tony wanted the whole crew to convene in the galley. Steve glanced downwards before opening the door and stepping out into the hallway, his fingers no more than a whisper of warmth and light pressure on Bucky’s wrist.

In the commons area, Bucky sat on the arm of Clint’s chair, his hand straying to Lucky’s head to scratch gently. Clint—currently leaning so far down his chair he was almost horizontal—knocked his leg playfully against Bucky’s. Bucky looked to the scruffy blond, noticing his faint smile and raising an eyebrow in question.

_What happened?_ Clint mouthed, looking meaningfully at Steve.

Bucky allowed himself to smile. “Something good.”

Tony stepped onto the couch beside Natasha in the centre of their half-circle of people, oblivious to her steely-eyed glare. “We’re hitting the Inner Provinces in half a lunar cycle, loyal subjects,” he announced grandly, raising his battered tin cup in celebration. “So, scrub up, because we’re gonna be making a delivery to some very important clientele.”

“Which region?” Thor asked. His head had snapped up so fast at the mention of the Inner Provinces that Bucky was sure he had whiplash.

Out of the nine Inner Provenance regions in total, Bucky had only visited two—if what he could glean from his shattered memories served him well. He recalled gleaming skyscrapers instead of the shacks and grimy, low-slung buildings of backwater moons and colonies. Immaculate gardens that didn’t grow mutated tube vegetables and rotten fruit. Water that wasn’t subject to a shoddy filtration system, and rather a stream of clean and fresh liquid.

“Destination: Midgard.” Tony’s smirk was unshakable.

For half a lunar cycle, Bucky followed the same pattern he always had—of restless, dreamless sleep, spending more time on the galley than in the engine room, steadily repairing a boat that had become less of temporary point in time and more of a home. But instead of staring at a metal ceiling when his nightmares threatened to tear him apart, he found solace on the observation deck.

Steve was always waiting for him, feet crossed and smile ready. They didn’t do anything more than talk, and sometimes stare—Bucky couldn’t trust himself just yet, but Steve was ever-patient. The crew were mindful but not disrespectful of the fleeting touches shared between the two of them—hands overlapping when they passed a bowl of offered potato salad at supper, elbows and knees pressed together on the couch, a cheek cupped in the cockpit before curfew.

It wasn’t long before JARVIS touched down in Midgard. Waiting beside Bruce on the catwalk, Bucky watched the loading ramp drop as his arms dangled over the railing. An anxious Thor hastily jogged down onto the docks the second Natasha had given him the all clear. All three of them were compelled to smile as they watched the large blond jolted to a halt in front of a waiting brunette woman, quickly wrapping his arms around her and laughing, their smiles carefree.

“Do you think he’s happy?” Bucky asked Bruce, gaze still trained on the enraptured Thor and his fiancée—he’d called her Jane, his fair Jane. “Even though he can’t be with her?”

“She’s content to wait.” He approached the subject thoughtfully, carefully. Bruce had never shied away from telling Bucky the hard truth, although he was never strictly unkind. “If it means they can be together, she’ll wait.”

“But is that all it takes?”

Bruce glanced at him studiously. “Who are we talking about here?”

“Humour me.”

A cautious hand curled over his shoulder, an unspoken show of support that managed to assuage Bucky’s doubts in a matter of a few seconds. “They love each other, Bucky. I think that’s always going to be enough.”

Bucky remained on-board with Natasha and Lucky, despite the allure of touring the illustrious Inner Provinces without a mission, without an objective. The entire crew had been tempted to leave for a short period of time, one way or another.

Bucky played Howling Commandos with the redhead, conversation restricted to a comfortable minimum. He was glad for the respite as Bruce’s words circulated in his mind. He stepped outside to quickly oversee the unloading of cargo, noticing a dark-haired man lingering by JARVIS.

“Can I help you?” Bucky asked, approaching the well-groomed man.

He startled, pale eyes widening. The man smoothed his green-and-gold suit, habitually running a nervous hand through his slick, black hair. The man opened his mouth to speak before his gaze focused intensely on something over Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky followed his line of sight to see Thor and Jane boarding JARVIS, evidently the happiest people in this universe, no space left between them.

When Bucky turned back around, a question already forming on his lips, the man was gone.

Shrugging, he soon joined Natasha and continued their card game, all thoughts of the strange man on the docks fleeing his mind. Bruce was second to return, more rumpled than usual with a package tucked securely beneath his arm. Steve soon followed with Clint, the latter draping himself over Natasha’s lap. Bucky was still shocked by the way the married couple seemingly fit together, watching as Natasha ran a fond hand over her husband’s brow without thought.

Bucky was attuned to Steve’s presence at the back of his couch as he passed on the way to his quarters, feeling a whisper of contact over the grease-stained knuckles of his outstretched arm. He stared at Steve’s retreating back until he vanished from sight, suppressing the surge of embarrassment at Natasha’s knowing smile.

Tony returned with two other people, introducing Bucky to his best friend and a woman that surely couldn’t be his girlfriend—she was too put-together. It turned out Rhodey and Pepper was the long-suffering companions of their captain, but their affection for Tony was obvious beneath exasperated sighs and rolling eyes.

All of them amassed in the galley as Tony had paid a few extra UCs for the nightly mooring rate. A conjoined effort went into making supper, resulting in the oak table being covered by a large spread of delicious food and drink. The atmosphere was bright and warm, devoid of silence. Laughter, smiling, the wafting scents of fried meat and bitter alcohol filled the room.

Bucky lingered on the edges of the group, offering weak smiles of reassurance whenever the crew sent him worried glances. He was happy for his extended crew, knowing they deserved it—after all, space did get lonely. His pushed his thoughts aside when Steve appeared by his side, his hand a mirror image of Bucky’s—empty of booze, instead nursing a cup of fruit juice.

“How are you?” Steve asked softly, leaning against the back of couch beside the mechanic.

Bucky looked sideways at him. “Yeah. Better.”

“Sure?”

He pressed their shoulders together in reply, metal on flesh. The pilot and mechanic stood like that for a few more minutes, heads tipped together, content to share simple company. At one point Steve’s hand alternated from its place on the couch to the small of Bucky’s back, and Bucky’s head soon dropped onto the strong curve of his shoulder.

Bucky looked to Steve and asked if he wanted to go the observation deck when the group had dispersed into their own separate groups around the ship. Trailing up the staircase after Steve, their fingers interlocked, Bucky felt his pulse quicken. He sat by Steve on the couch, hands trembling with nervous energy, gaze downcast.

“Bucky?”

He looked up at Steve’s tentative voice, eyes wide and terrified.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” Steve was saying, placing their drinks onto the floor. In the dim lighting Bucky watched as Steve reached forward to lay his hand on his shoulder, silently asking if that sort of contact was permitted. “You’re okay, Buck. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Bucky closed his eyes before leaning into Steve’s touch, shoulders slumped. He leaned heavily against Steve’s chest, cheek pressed to the open collar of his pilot’s jacket. A pair of strong, sturdy arms encircled Bucky, anchoring him in place, offering safety amidst the pulsating rush of fear. He shook convulsively, both resentful and grateful for how Steve so readily accepted his frequent lapses in stability.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asked after a while, when Bucky’s shaking had subsided. When he was simply resting in the stalwart protection of Steve’s arms, seeking comfort, seeking touch.

“I’m terrified.” Bucky drew himself up so he could look at Steve rather than feel the deep rumble of his voice in his large chest. “I’m scared because I don’t know what will happen, but I want you anyway. I want to trust you, to depend on you.” He answered truthfully. “ _Stars_. I need you, Steve.”

“Bucky,” Steve breathed roughly, his composure showing the first indications of breaking—a twitch of muscle in his jaw, emotion swirling in his eyes. “You don’t know how much I want you, but I’m not going to do anything unless you’re absolutely sure.”

“The thing is,” steeling his resolve, Bucky managed a weak but convincing smile, “you’re the only thing I’m sure about.”

There was a fragile hope forming in Steve’s expression, evident in the slow curve of his smile. Bucky pressed their foreheads together in an echo of their first night on the observation deck, and then in Steve’s bunk after. They were close enough to share the same breath. His fingers unwound from Steve’s collar, hesitantly curling over the back of the pilot’s neck, thumb slowly brushing over exposed skin. Bucky willed Steve to notice the lack of uncertainty in the open gesture of affection.

Although he was afraid of what the future would bring for him and Steve both, he knew what he felt for Steve was concrete. It went beyond the superficial standards of physical attraction, the foundations of his emotions rooted deep within his chest, indisputably real and good and whole. It was the only thing Bucky trusted himself to believe in.

There, under the faint, glittering light of the stars above, Steve felt Bucky nod against him, the intention behind the action clear. Steve paused, breathing deeply before closing the distance between them slowly, carefully, until their lips met in a whisper of contact.


	4. Till The End Of The Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky eventually fell asleep with Steve’s hand running over his head gently, never once deprived of his touch. And when he woke up, gasping and terrified, cold was quickly replaced by heat. His incoherent mumblings were quieted by tentative kisses, Steve’s touch grounding him to this ship, to this person, to this life.
> 
> And when Steve finally convinced him to close his eyes once again, Bucky rested his head on the same pillow as him. They pressed their foreheads together, sharing the same breath, reaching for each other in the dark.

Bucky inhaled sharply as he felt Steve’s mouth close against his, the pressure intimate and soft. His fingers tentatively carded through the fine blond hair at the base of Steve’s skull, revelling in the contented hum he drew from the pilot. Although Steve soon pulled back, the action slow and precise as not to sow the seeds of doubt in Bucky’s mind, but far enough to end their kiss.

Confused and disappointed at the lack of further contact, Bucky searched for Steve’s gaze in the dim. Steve was breathing heavily, staring at the mechanic meaningfully until Bucky belatedly realised that Steve was waiting for him to take initiative. He pulled Steve closer, sealing their lips in a close-mouthed kiss, feeling the tension drain from the pilot’s shoulders, going lax with relief. Steve’s hand curled around Bucky’s elbow, and then drifted to his back, clutching at the fabric to steady himself. Feeling his defences slowly crumble beneath Steve’s touch, Bucky metal arm fisted Steve’s jacket high on his waist, frantic in his hold.

Desperate to feel more, to chase the unfurling heat of desire low in his abdomen, Bucky’s turned his head to the side and his mouth opened, shivering at the first hot slide of Steve’s tongue against his. Overwhelmed with the sudden close proximity of Steve, of the wet heat of him, he was glad they pulled apart.

Although his gasping breaths soon deepened into a strangled moan as Steve alternated his attention from Bucky’s mouth to his neck, trailing a scorch-hot line of kisses from his jaw downwards. He lingered on the sensitive areas where Bucky gasped unbidden under Steve’s gentle ministrations, the mechanic’s fingers gripping Steve’s skin and clothes tightly as if he was afraid he would slip from his grasp.

Coherent thought had long since fled Bucky’s mind as a slight hint of Steve’s teeth grazed the apex of his neck and shoulder, and he practically jerked Steve towards him, arching forward to press the bodies together. His hand abandoned their restrained position in fist and moved to work the buttons of Steve’s jacket open, blunt fingernails scraping over the formfitting stretch of his shirt over the pilot’s broad chest. Bucky fumbled at the hem of his crewmate’s shirt, nearly driven mad by the tingling sensations of Steve’s breath hot and close in his ear.

Bucky’s hand slid beneath Steve’s shirt, pushing the fabric further upwards as his touch skimmed over the muscled planes of Steve’s chest. A low growl escaped Steve’s throat and his head dropped into the cradle of Bucky’s neck before his resolve broke. Steve’s arm encircled Bucky’s waist and roughly pulled him half onto his lap, causing the mechanic to straddle Steve’s thigh in attempt to stabilise himself. As his hands had been dislodged from under Steve’s shirt in their frantic movements, Bucky’s arm instinctively wound around Steve’s shoulders, holding him close, unwilling to ever let him go.

And then, Bucky felt Steve’s whole body seemingly droop with a weary sigh against his.

“What’s wrong?” he asked warily. Bucky’s hold loosened on Steve’s jacket, easing his curled fingers out of their vice-like grip. But Steve was quick to run his hands reassuringly down Bucky’s back, the motion careful rather than passionately frantic, effectively soothing Bucky’s fears.

“Don’t you think we’re going a little too fast?” Steve asked, despite how much he wanted to kiss Bucky, or feel the maddening glide of skin-on-skin contact—his need was a physical, raw emotion.

Bucky rested his head against Steve’s, defeated. “You’re probably right.”

“Probably?” Steve’s tone was teasing and light, despite the rough cadence of his voice.

“Well—” Bucky shifted in his seat, causing Steve to hiss sharply as his knee brushed against Steve’s obvious arousal. “Stars, sorry,” he apologised meekly, his pulse thrumming loudly in his ears. Bucky hoped the darkness would serve to hide his embarrassing blush as he attempted to stem the ebbing flow of his own desire by the force of sheer willpower alone.

“I think—” Steve swallowed thickly, his eyes closed; “Bucky, it’s difficult to think when you’re currently draped across my lap.”

Bucky carefully, albeit reluctantly, extracted himself from Steve’s lap. He almost felt compelled to moan at the loss of contact and heat, but he soon—blessedly—realised that he was able to seek touch without needing a plausible excuse. In an effort not to seem overbearingly eager, Bucky slid closer to Steve, thankful for when the pilot leaned back to offer the space by his side. Bucky’s gaze dropped dangerously to wear Steve’s shirt had been rucked up over his stomach in their frenzied interlude, revealing the golden curve of a hipbone, but Steve was quick to cover his exposed skin.

He knew how they must’ve looked; mouths swollen and hair mussed. Their appearance was dishevelled, especially when scrutinising the hasty unfastening of Steve’s jacket or the trail of increasingly red marks on the skin of Bucky’s neck.

“C’mon,” Steve chided softly, looping his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and pulling him closer, “if you start that I don’t think we’d ever stop.” Steve didn’t shy away from the cold of Bucky’s metal appendage, instead choosing to rub patterns over the pressure-sensitive contour of his upper arm.

“I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep tonight,” Steve admitted later. They’d both spent a considerable amount of time staring at the fathomless view above, rivers of light of from different solar systems running through the inky black sky.

“Hmm?” Bucky murmured. He was tired and content in his place resting against Steve’s side, lulled by the steady beating of the pilot’s heart under his ear.

“I said I don’t think I’m going to sleep too well tonight.”

Bucky snorted softly before curling further into the natural curve of Steve’s body, hands tucked beneath his chin. Once his eyes had drifted shut, Bucky felt Steve brush a few errant strands of hair from his face, the touch reverential in its actions. He fell asleep to the feeling of a fleeting kiss pressed to the crown of his head.

And when Bucky awoke, arms lashing out and screams hoarse, he was soothed by the placating gentleness of large hands and the murmurs of a familiar voice. His nightmares remained—nausea forcing him to his hands and knees, a patient Steve offering conciliation at his side—but the return to the peaceful quiet of calm was easy, and finding solace once again was easier still.

In the morning, Steve was roused awake by Bucky’s inept attempt to disentangle them both.

“Hey,” the pilot said groggily, catching Bucky’s hand, “where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh, breakfast, I was—” He fumbled for the right words, gaze fixed firmly on their interlocked hands so he didn’t have to outright stare at Steve. “I was going to get some breakfast.” He finished lamely.

Bucky was unsure of the repercussions of what happened last night, concerning both their conversation and what followed after—or if Steve still wanted him the way Bucky wanted him. If his fears and uncertainties and ambiguous past evoked a sense of trepidation.

He moved to pull away but Steve held fast. Breathing deeply, Bucky was forced to reluctantly look at Steve, and his expression of mild confusion and hurt cut deep. Bucky opened his mouth to speak but Steve had swiftly risen to his feet, silencing his incompetent attempts at speech.

“Buck,” Steve whispered softly. His hand reached out to cup Bucky’s cheek in a careful hold, staring at the mechanic as if he was searching for any resulting signs of discomfort or doubt.

Bucky’s throat was dry, a building headache thudding dully against his temples. “I just didn’t want to wake you, is all,” Bucky managed to say. “You stayed up with me last night and I wanted to let you sleep for a few more minutes so you wouldn’t be tired today.”

Something tense in Steve’s expression eased at Bucky’s words. “You were worried about me not getting enough sleep?” The amusement in his tone was countered by an undeniable fondness, lips pulling into an endearingly lopsided smile.

Bucky nodded, his response muffled as Steve leaned forward to catch his mouth in a tentative kiss. It wasn’t a heady display of affection, or a promise of more, but something simple and sweet—a hello whispered against skin in the first stages of lazy wakefulness. Bucky sighed, almost swaying forward as Steve pulled back, causing Bucky’s balance to waver.

Steve smiled again, full and bright. He gifted a disgruntled Bucky with another quick kiss before leading him in the direction of the stairs. And, when Bucky felt the sudden urge to brush Steve’s hand on their descent to the galley, he was finally able to act upon it without fear. Steve’s response—a grin over his shoulder and a thumb brushing over Bucky’s knuckles—were enough to appease his desires, at least for now.

The galley was unnaturally quiet upon their arrival, the majority of the extended crew critically assessing both the ship’s resident pilot and mechanic. Bucky’s steps faltered under their collective scrutiny, but Steve kissed his cheek—as natural as he would steer the ship into dock or converse  with Tony about the flight schedule--before scouting for two unused mugs amidst the clutter of last night.

And, just like that, the spell broke.       

Tony clapped his hand on Steve’s shoulder, saying something about his innate intuition when it came to winning bets to a defeated Clint. Natasha and Pepper managed to roll their eyes almost in sync at their partner’s actions, sharing a pot of coffee both of them and an unaffected Rhodey. In comparison to Jane’s demure congratulations, Thor gathered Bucky into a large hug at “successfully winning the favour of fair Steve’s hand”. Clint caught Bucky’s eye from across the room and said helpfully, “You might want to find a room next time you and Steve set your thrusters to hyper-speed, Cyborg.”

Smiling faintly, Bucky slid into a seat beside Bruce after the initial humdrum had subsided. He knew Bruce was waiting for him to speak first. “I think I’m happy, Bruce. Even despite what’s going on up in here”—he motioned vaguely to his head—“I think me and Steve could be happy.”

He was met by Bruce’s small nod of acknowledgment, a silent display of pleased approval.

It was startlingly easy how Bucky and Steve’s burgeoning relationship fit into their regular day-to-day actions. Of course, touches were decidedly more frequent—hands curled around waists instead of fleetingly grazing elbows now, feet hooked over legs on the couch, fingers absently massaging scalps after a particularly strenuous day’s work. Kissing became the usual gesture of greeting—ranging from quick pecks on passing in the hallway and catwalk, to lingering kisses before curfew, and even to the hot slide of tongue and teeth in the orange light of the engine room. But things hadn’t surpassed beyond their increasingly passionate interludes in the dark, one of them usually turning away after a bout careless rutting or hands lingering at waistbands of pants.

Bucky had told Steve one night that he’d stopped becoming afraid of the future, and instead he’d started to fear the possibility of losing him in the present. His unsaid past hung heavy and complicated between them, acting as the usual source of heated opposition, although it usually resulted in a sleepless night of rapidly fading resentment and a sincere apology the morning after.

Bucky knew he slept better with Steve, despite wherever they ended up—the observation deck, the couch, the pilot’s chairs in the cockpit. A bed would be a much more comfortable choice, but Bucky’s hammock was too small and the promised privacy of Steve’s cot would surely taper from innocent kissing and lazy fondling to something more heated, more uncontrollable.

However, one night, Bucky’s resolve broke. After bleakly staring at the stark metal ceiling of the engine room for hours on end, Bucky relented in the strict agreement he and Steve had agreed to three cargo drops back. He hadn’t been able to sleep curled under Steve’s arm over the past few days due to freak meteorite shower that changed his entire flight plan, causing him to manually pilot JARVIS for long, interrupted hours. Not to mention Bucky had been working his ass off after JARVIS’ shield had been damaged when they’d barely made it out of the hail of meteorites.

Clambering out of his hammock, Lucky raised a head at Bucky’s departure, but resumed sleeping disinterestedly. Bucky padded barefoot through the ship’s interior, dressed in an oversized long-sleeve T-shirt and grey cotton pants. His hair had been left unbound following his shower tonight, but it had been quickly dishevelled in his failed attempt at sleep.

Bucky quietly ascended the catwalk, careful of his sleeping crewmates, sparing a glance at the top of the observation deck once he’d reached the galley. It was late enough to be nearing curfew, but still too early for Steve to have miserably crawled into a bed which promised no sleep—so he wouldn’t be seeking solace in his usual position on the upper deck.

Instead Bucky found Steve in the cockpit, easing JARVIS into a smooth flight trajectory to their nearest fuel port. Bucky leaned against the doorframe, watching Steve pilot the ship unseen. A smile pulled at his lips, fond and intimate, delighting in how easy it was to look rather than to pine. Unable to leash his self-control, Bucky silently approached Steve and laid a hand at the base of his neck.

Steve jerked at the contact, his intense look of concentration replaced with a familiar soft smile once he looked up and realised it was Bucky. The mechanic felt the tension drain from Steve’s frame under his touch, and Bucky’s hands soon drifted to Steve’s clothed shoulders, working the taut strain from his flesh and muscles. Steve made a small, appreciative noise in the back of his throat, leaning closer to Bucky although he maintained his grip on the helm.

“What are you doing aimlessly wandering the bowels of the ship?” Steve asked in a hoarse, exhausted voice, adjusting a few controls and checking the monitors on the flight console before allowing JARVIS to autopilot. “You should get some sleep. We’re landing on SWS-44 tomorrow, and all planets located in the Northern Quadrant are known to be caught in a blizzard or some other manner of snowstorm.” He sighed tiredly. “It’ll be a tough haul.”

Steve felt Bucky’s fingers still on his shoulders at the mention of their imminent cargo drop. Concerned, Steve asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I just… never liked the cold that much,” Bucky hated how his vague reply caused hurt to swirl in Steve’s eyes, the emotion heartbreakingly raw. He knew he had seldom talked about his past, or barely notable anything before his time spent on JARVIS, but Steve was never distrustful or suspicious. Merely curious.

Sometimes Bucky felt compelled to tell him—sometimes a lie, sometimes everything—but the words never properly formed. Steve deserved more than Bucky, he deserved more than a façade.

“Hey, Buck,” he felt Steve grasp the mechanic’s chin in a tentative hold. Concerned by Bucky’s shaken, silent appearance, Steve had relinquished his position in the pilot’s chair to give Bucky his full attention. “You okay?”

“I—” He swallowed, his gaze focusing on Steve. “Once I—”

“It’s okay.” Steve ran his hand through Bucky’s loose hair, his nimble fingertips lazily massaging his scalp in an effort to soothe Bucky. Steve repeated the action until Bucky’s breathing slowed, and the glint of terror faded from his gaze. Afterwards he pushed a few dark strands away from obscuring Bucky’s face, the hair thick and soft under Steve’s palms.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Bucky asked roughly, clenching his jaw to fight the surge of nausea. His left arm ached at the joint, his system of synthetic nerve endings singing with pain, with the memory of cold and an overpowering buffet of icy wind. He told himself that Hydra couldn’t reach him—not out here, not where Steve existed, not now.

Steve’s hesitance caused Bucky to step back, his courage steadily wavering. “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Steve rushed to say once he’d noted Bucky’s reaction, already reaching for him. “I just worry if I’m doing the right thing by you sometimes. I don’t want to hurt you.” His hands were outstretched, but Steve waited for Bucky’s permission before going any further. “Bucky, I want to help you.”

Bucky clenched his eyes shut against the hot prickle of tears before he rushed forward, needing to feel more than a hollow tin soldier would. Steve stumbled backwards, gasping in surprise at the sudden impact of Bucky’s entire body weight crushing against his, but Steve’s arms instinctively caught the wayward mechanic.

Bucky pressed his face into the front of Steve’s jacket, hands fisting the fabric desperately; holding onto him like an anchor in the storm. Bucky tried to centre on the comforting weight of Steve to dissuade his attention from the intrusive tableaux of metal and ice and red in his head, only to partial success—his memories were vicious and unrelenting.

When Bucky’s shaking had subsided into a slight tremble, and he no longer clutched onto Steve like a terrified child, Steve asked, “Do you want to—”

“Can I stay with you?” Bucky repeated, nose pressed into the crook of Steve’s neck.

A beat’s pause. “Yeah, Buck. You can.” His voice was soft but sure.

Bucky followed Steve to his quarters by their clasped hands, never straying more than a step too far from the pilot. Once the automatic door had slid shut behind them both, Steve and Bucky were effectively sealed in the former’s bunk.

Steve shucked off his jacket and shirt without leaving Bucky’s personal space, cautious of his innate fear of losing Steve. Bucky listen to the metallic clink as Steve’s dog tags fell back against his chest with a sound thud as he pulled the clothes over his head. Bucky disrobed at a steadily slower pace, looking from the floor to Steve whenever the pilot turned his back to lay his garments over a pull-out hanging rack.

“You good?” Steve asked once Bucky’s actions had stalled. His long-sleeved T-shirt was clutched tightly in the mechanic’s hands, standing barefoot in his cotton pants, shivering in the cold space of Steve’s bunk. The pilot leaned down to catch Bucky’s eye, a faint smile easing the evident thread of tension in his face.

Bucky nodded vacantly in response to Steve’s question, allowing Steve to take his shirt from him and gently turn him towards the bed. Bucky sat on the edge of the mattress, unable to do more than nod or shake his head at Steve’s tentative inquiring, his bare skin prickling in the filtered ship air.

Dressed in briefs and a white singlet, Steve put his knee on the bed before crawling past Bucky to the other side of the cot, resting his back on the wall. Bucky registered the creak of the bedframe as Steve lay down, the mattress so narrow his thigh was constantly pressed to the dip of Bucky’s back. After a few tense seconds Bucky felt a hand on his back, and he exhaled heavily as the touch moved feather-light over his skin.

Bucky turned to silently curl against the muscled length of Steve, whose arm cushioned his head and the other was thrown casually over his stomach, so there was little to no resistance to Bucky’s efforts. He shivered at the first contact of skin to skin, as the heat and solidity of Steve almost dizzying in its sheer intensity. Steve asked JARVIS to dim the interior lighting as Bucky cautiously rested his head on Steve’s chest, fist tucked beneath his chin and leg subtly slipped between Steve’s.

When the room had considerably darkened, the only supply of light sourced from the stars shining outside porthole, Steve pressed a kiss to the crown of Bucky’s head. Steve alternated the position of his arms so he had easy access to touching Bucky. The careful motion of Steve’s fingers over his left shoulder—Bucky belatedly realised he should’ve taken the other side of the bed as not to bare his weaponised arm—caressed the seam of metal and flesh with painstaking tenderness, lulling Bucky into a contented state. He pressed closer to the pilot, no longer rigid with anxiety but now relaxed.

Steve’s hand drifted further upwards, brushing over Bucky’s hair softly, absently. He made a quiet, pleased mewl at the touch, nuzzling at Steve’s neck. The pilot’s chest rumbled with good-natured laughter, humbly appreciative of the fact Bucky trusted him enough to seek touch, to act on base instinct rather than thought.

Opening his eyes, Bucky propped his chin on his interlocked hands over Steve’s pectorals. He could barely glean the sight of Steve’s unabashed smile in the dark, increasingly aware of Steve’s fingers still tangled in his own hair. Bucky felt something twist in his gut before dropping his head to kiss the solid, golden muscle beneath his hands.

When he was finally able to look up at Steve—the pilot knew what he was going to say, but his unspoken reassurance meant legions to Bucky—he managed a quirk of a lip, something close to a smile but not quite.

“I was born on BKYLN-17.” Bucky started—it wasn’t much, but it was something. He paused, wondering if he should just make something up. But as Bucky toyed with the rustic dog tags around Steve’s neck, the mechanic’s head cradled by a large palm, Bucky realised that Steve might be the only person left in the universe who would be able to understand him.

But all Bucky said was: “I’m a dirt colonist, huh?”

Steve managed a weak laugh for Bucky’s sake. “Well, I was born on BKYLN-18. That practically makes us neighbours.” Fingers curled a strand of hair over the shell of Bucky’s ear, the pad of his thumb lingering on the curve of his cheekbone. “Who would’ve thought that in the entire universe, we were only a planet down the line from each other?”

Bucky quieted before saying shakily, “I don’t deserve you.”

His response caused Steve to react with a desperate sort of movement, already acting on the instinct to comfort Bucky. He pulled Bucky closer, turned so he could level him with one direct, soft-eyed look. “It doesn’t matter which planet we were born on, Buck,” Steve said, gentle but firm. “Or what serial number it was amongst millions, or how far it was along the line, because I’m with you till the end of it.”

“Till the end of the line?” Bucky asked, breathless. Terrified. He rested his weight on his forearm and shifted closer until he was almost hovering over Steve. The pilot’s hand slid downwards, trailing over the mould of Bucky’s shoulders and following the natural curve of his spine. Steve held onto Bucky with a little more insistence now, needing to ground himself. To make himself feel it. Bucky leaned closer to Steve as he anxiously waited for an answer.

“Till the end of the line,” Steve agreed mellifluously, tracing an absent pattern on the skin of Bucky’s back, succeeding in distracting the latter.

Bucky felt his chin drop, his composure wavering. “You don’t have to do that for me, Steve. You don’t have to save me. You don’t need to.” The full length of his hair brushed past the hard angles of Bucky’s stubbled jawline, framing his solemn expression. The gears in his arms shifted in clunky succession as he redistributed his weight onto his metal elbow so he could trace a finger along the line of Steve’s neck.

“I don’t have to,” Steve objected. “I want to.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“It’s not about repaying a debt here, Bucky.” There was a defiant conviction in Steve’s voice, but his words lacked any real anger. Although his expression softened almost instantly at Bucky’s inward flinch. Steve’s cupped his palm over Bucky’s flesh shoulder, indulging in his ability to touch, to feel. “Just how hard is it for you to believe that I care about you?”

Steve expected Bucky to pull away, to avoid the subject of worth altogether—his self-loathing ran deep. But as Steve rose onto his elbows to keep Bucky firmly in place beside him, Bucky wrapped his arms around the pilot’s neck desperately, lips moving against his neck.

He was saying the same thing, over and over again: “I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve you—”

“You do, Bucky,” Steve whispered against the side of his head, holding him just as tightly. “You do.” Bucky just seemed to shake harder at his hushed reassurance, so Steve pulled him back against him, gathering the mechanic as close as he possibly could.

Bucky eventually fell asleep with Steve’s hand running over his head gently, never once deprived of his touch. And when he woke up, gasping and terrified, cold was quickly replaced by heat. His incoherent mumblings were quieted by tentative kisses, Steve’s touch grounding him to this ship, to this person, to this life.

And when Steve finally convinced him to close his eyes once again, Bucky rested his head on the same pillow as him. They pressed their foreheads together, sharing the same breath, reaching for each other in the dark.

Bucky didn’t dream for the remainder of that night.

Bucky was roused awake long after Steve’s side of the bed was cold and abandoned in the morning. Carelessly sprawled across the messy sheets of the pilot’s cot, Bucky glanced groggily at the porthole and was surprised to see the glass frosted with ice rather than clear with starlight. He repressed a violent shudder at the sight of the cold, white pain, his very bone marrow aching with the memory of it.

Unwilling to engage in any social interaction that wasn’t specifically tall, blond and Steve, Bucky was teetering on the edge of sleep before the intercom blared to life.

“Emergency take-off, I repeat, emergency take-off,” Natasha stated, her voice belying as much uncertainty as Bucky had ever heard. JARVIS lurched forward and up, the steering unsteady and clumsy until Bucky realised with a jolt that Natasha was piloting, not Steve.

The thought was sudden and desperate: _So where was Steve?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a very Steve-and-Bucky-centric chapter and I ain't even sorry (mainly because the next chapter is a real kick in the pants).


	5. War Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JARVIS' erratic flight pattern evened out when Bucky reached the top of the catwalk, the final lurch throwing his weight against the top rung of the stairs, leaning precariously over the open space of the cargo bay below. He pushed himself backwards to alleviate the bruising pressure off his ribcage, and it was then he glimpsed the group of people huddled by the lever to the loading ramp.
> 
> Thor had braced his arms against Tony’s shoulders, talking to him steady and low. Bucky’s gaze slid to Bruce and Clint, their heads bent together over a lifeless form, Bruce’s expert hands holding a golden wrist in search for a pulse. His heart stuttering to a pitiful stop, Bucky recognised the two white lines circling the dark blue of a sleeve of the hand—it was Steve’s pilot jacket.

Bucky had stumbled into the hallway in no less than three seconds, shivering pitifully in his minimal sleepwear. The bare soles of his feet were exposed to the seeping cold of the sheeted metal floor. He looked from the cockpit to the galley, the explosive rush of turbine exhaust echoing loudly throughout JARVIS—something was deathly wrong.

It was common knowledge that external sound was rendered obsolete whenever ships were in the air, so why could Bucky hear the gears shift into place? Why could he hear the deafening roar of the two main engines upon take-off? His heartbeat was erratic, and he swallowing to suppress the sickening surge of panic, nausea causing his whole orbit to sway.

_Where was Steve?_

Bucky headed towards to the open cockpit, the unsteady piloting causing him to stumble, his shoulder slamming into the doorframe. His synthetic nerve system registered the pain keenly.

“Steve?” He gasped.

“Almost,” Natasha replied, a strained undertone belying her iron composure, “but not quite.”

“Where is he?” Bucky grappled for a manual hold. His arm was almost ripped from its socket as Natasha tipped to the helm sidewards to evade collision with a number cargo and transport boats entering the atmosphere. In layman’s terms, she was swimming upstream—flying blind against a slew of oncoming intergalactic traffic.

“I’m a little busy,” the first mate grated, her knuckles bone-white with tension.

“Where’s Steve?” Bucky demanded, fear coursing through his bloodstream. He needed to find Steve; he needed to figure out what the fuck was going on—

The bow tipped almost vertically, prompting Bucky to shout, “For fuck’s sake, Natasha! Stay the course.” Bucky slipped backwards as Natasha broke through the thick cluster of space vehicles. His flesh elbow struck against the wall with the crack of a gunshot, the rush of pain sudden and violent. The numerous slates of his metal plating ached with strain of anchoring himself, the internal mechanics barely holding together.

“Cargo bay,” Natasha said roughly.

Thinking any response was unmerited; Bucky turned on his heel and made his slow, unsteady way across the ship. The intercom crackled to life, the harsh sound of white noise coupled with the strobe effect of the flashing emergency lights overwhelming Bucky’s senses. But he was accustomed to the charged rush of adrenaline; it was the solitary, contemplative quiet where his mind filled with the tableaux of shattered memories. He clenched his fist to expel the thought of how artificial light glinted on his bloodied metal knuckles.

But Bucky had a purpose now, a mission that required his sole attention: to find Steve.

JARVIS' erratic flight pattern evened out when Bucky reached the top of the catwalk, the final lurch throwing his weight against the top rung of the stairs, leaning precariously over the open space of the cargo bay below. He pushed himself backwards to alleviate the bruising pressure off his ribcage, and it was then he glimpsed the group of people huddled by the lever to the loading ramp.

Thor had braced his arms against Tony’s shoulders, talking to him steady and low. Bucky’s gaze slid to Bruce and Clint, their heads bent together over a lifeless form, Bruce’s expert hands holding a golden wrist in search for a pulse. His heart stuttering to a pitiful stop, Bucky recognised the two white lines circling the dark blue of a sleeve of the hand—it was Steve’s pilot jacket.

He must’ve said—or more likely screamed—something because soon all four conscious people were staring at him, equal parts anxious and terrified. Bucky took the stairs three steps at a time, hitting the ground floor so hard the impact stole his breath away. He rushed to Steve, his frantic momentum causing him to skid on his knees over the harsh metal grating.

“Bucky,” Bruce began tentatively.

“What the fuck happened?” Bucky demanded, roughly shoving Clint aside to gather Steve in his arms. He cradled Steve’s blond head against his chest gently, his hands fluttering concernedly over his closed eyes and slack jaw and slick, wet hair. “Stars, someone talk to me!”

“We had a bad run,” Tony offered meekly, absent of all his usual projection.

“How fucking bad could’ve it been if Steve is unconscious?” Bucky was wild-eyed, overwrought, ready to tear out the spine of the next person who danced around the subject. Yet he treated Steve’s prone form like glass, quaking with the fear of him breaking.

“Were you even awake when the blizzard hit?” Tony replied, a thin veil of wryness masking his anger. “The winds were so strong the ship was nearly thrown off its axis; there was no one at the docks to secure the payload once we unloaded it.” Bucky stared at Tony, needing to hear what he had to say but dreading it all the same. “Steve was out there doing _your_ job whilst you were sleeping in _his_ fucking bunk. And it turns out that the whole place had been commandeered by bandits, so, Buck,” he abandoned all pretences once he near spat the mechanic’s name, “it was real fucking bad.”

For Steve’s sake, Bucky remained unfazed, and he barely registered the reassuring pressure of Bruce’s hand on his flesh forearm. “He’s a pilot,” Bucky asked no one in particular, “what was he even doing outside of the ship?”

“The gears of the loading ramp had nearly been frozen shut, so I went in search of our resident Hydra lackey to find you two all wrapped up in each other.” Tony was practically shaking, but there was no denying the tremor beneath his wrath. “You were fucking nuzzling his neck when Steve assured me that he’d fix the problem so you could get a few decent hours sleep. We were attacked in the next ten minutes and his tether broke in less. He fell into arctic waters. The ice broke and he went under.” He paused, quiet and sombre. “If there’s anyone to blame here, it’s you, kid.”

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, sick with nausea and wracked with guilt. _I did this to you Steve. Don’t tell me I deserve you because I don’t. I almost killed you, Steve. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—_

Bucky didn’t realise he was speaking aloud until Clint gripped Bucky’s elbow hesitantly, grounding him amidst his fearful rambling. Bucky pulled Steve closer, unwilling to ever let go as he looked from one crew member to another, halting once he realised Tony’s hair was damp. It became startlingly apparent that someone had to of pulled Steve from the water if he was here, and judging by his wet clothes and violent shuddering, that person was Captain Stark.

“Bucky, we need to get Steve to his bunk.” Bruce said firmly, ever a source of unyielding calm. “He needs to get warm or he’ll go into hypothermic shock, okay? So we need to move him now.”

The mechanic nodded mutely, reaching for Steve before a silent Thor pushed Bucky aside to gather Steve into his arms, bearing the full brunt of the pilot’s weight. Bucky swallowed thickly, sharing a quick, guilty sidewards glance with Tony before following behind Thor and Bruce closely on their journey upwards.

“Bucky, can you make me a drink?” Bruce asked. “Something hot and sweet for when Steve wakes up.”

“I’m not leaving him,” he objected obstinately. “Here, Thor, move—” He slid past the larger man to enter Steve’s password with a vicious stabbing of numbers on the digital keypad in the crew quarter’s, permitting them access to Steve’s bunk. He was quick to strip the bed of rumpled sheets and blankets, settling far back on the mattress. Bucky shed his own T-shirt—which was one of Steve’s he had hastily threw on—in preparation to offer Steve the only thing he could—body heat.

Bruce stared at him for a beat, assessing Bucky’s mussed hairstyle and creased pants, watching as the mechanic motioned for Thor to bring Steve closer. And then Bruce was spurred into a flurry of action, directing Thor to the bed. Bucky accepted Steve’s hefty weight between his open legs as Thor lowered the pilot onto the cot like he would a child, and Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve to fully breach the space between them.

“No, don’t do that,” Bruce advised, “strip him first, all the way down to his underwear. Bucky, since we can’t dress Steve unconscious, I need you to try to dry him. Restore heat slowly by rubbing his trunk first, anything besides his head or limbs, to stimulate warmth.”

Bucky did as he was bid, helping Thor to undress Steve before taking an outstretched towel from Bruce, desperately trying to coax colour back into Steve’s blue lips. He worked in fast succession over all of Steve’s exposed body, wiping the cold sheen of moisture from his skin and towelling the water-darkened strands of his hair. Bucky didn’t pay any heed to the other people in the small space of the room as he placed a reverential kiss to Steve’s cool brow.

“He’s going to be okay, Bucky,” Bruce said in conciliation, sitting close to the bed on a low chair he’d sourced from the galley before. “Steve’s breathing is regular, and Tony pulled him out of the water fast enough for any real damage to be done. He just needs to be warmed up.”

His fears remained unassuaged. “He shouldn’t have been out there,” Bucky heard himself whisper, unable to look away from Steve. Bucky accepted a blanket from Bruce to lie over Steve’s torso. He tried to rub warmth back into his chilled skin, Bucky’s fingers carding through Steve’s hair to move in massaging motions over his scalp.

“You know Steve wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

“But it’s my fault,” Bucky snapped, glancing at Bruce sternly.

“It’s everyone’s fault,” Bruce argued. “At least one of us should’ve been out there with him, but most of us were in the galley. Tony was trying to keep the ship together as it was, so I’d count it as a blessing that he was even close enough to notice Steve...” The psychiatrist ran a hand across the back of his neck, sighing tiredly. “We shouldn’t have even unloaded the cargo without a dockmaster present.”

Bucky dropped his head to Steve’s, a broad metal hand curling around his neck in a vulnerable action of seeking comfort. Bucky’s thick, dark hair acted as a curtain, hanging over his bare shoulders to shield him and Steve from everyone and everything. He couldn’t lose him, not when Steve was the only good and pure thing he’d been able to find across the entire fucking universe.

The mechanic heard a rustle of fabric and then Bruce was peeling the blanket away to gauge Steve’s temperature, laying the back of his burly hand across Steve’s chest. Bucky raised his head minutely, shifting closer to Steve as if to further shelter him, lips ghosting across the pilot’s temple.

Bucky’s raised himself up on his elbows, his brows furrowed in confusion as his fingers circled the small, round scar on Steve’s abdomen. He noticed another scar, similar in texture and colour, stretching across the side of his waist. “When was he shot?” He asked quietly, needing a distraction.

“We were docking at some crude oil rig in the Potomac Sea. We only took the job since it paid so well, and it only paid so well because there were rumours of a rogue Hydra agent on-board.” Bruce alternated his hand from Steve’s chest to his forehead, lowering his voice. “Nat found him bleeding out with a bullet in his stomach on the loading ramp. He nearly died protecting us.”

“When was this?” Bucky asked shakily, dreading the answer.

“A few years ago, when Hydra was disbanding.”

Bucky curled closer to Steve, his innards roiling and queasy. _I was still under Hydra’s control then, working mainly in the Northern Quadrant. It could’ve been me. Stars, I could’ve been the one to hurt Steve and I couldn’t even fucking remember it._

Bruce continued speaking, either ignoring or oblivious to Bucky’s pain. “You can try to cover him fully now, but any rapid heating could cause him to go into shock. When he wakes have JARVIS call me, and get him that drink I was talking about before, something hot and sweet.” Bruce said, hovering in the edges of Bucky’s vision. A heavy pause. “You’ll be okay, Bucky. And so will Steve.”

Bucky allowed the rigid set of his shoulders to ease once the door had slid shut, the clanging gears reassuringly locking into place. He arranged the thin blankets around Steve’s body again, pulling it high up his chest. Once he was sure Steve was able to generate a slow build of heat, Bucky settled beside him, his back pressed flush against the wall to allow Steve as much space as possible to rest in comfort.

He reached out tentatively to grasp Steve’s limp hand, halting in his movements for a second and then resting their intertwined fingers on the pilot’s chest. Bucky leaned forward to kiss Steve chastely on the lips before opening his mouth to speak, finally, for the first time since he’d left Hydra.

“I was born on BKYLN-17. I’m a dirt colonist, huh?” Bucky laughed on exhale, now speaking with the intent to finish what he needed to say. “I kinda hate myself for leaving the way I did, from my home planet. Because I went on out on this stupid date but yet I didn’t even manage to say goodbye to my sister. You would’ve liked her, Steve. Her name was Becky, and she is probably one of the sweetest kids you’d ever met. But I left without telling her goodbye and before I knew it, I was in a different galaxy. My life had been erased, so if she looked for me she’d never find me.”

“I was trained as a field mechanic, but it wasn’t long before I was drafted into the Winter Soldier program. They got the name from how much time we spent in cryostasis. Frozen. On display like some sick sort of assembly line.” Bucky thought he felt Steve’s fingers tighten in his own, but he surmised it was a simple reflex. “I thought I was such a hero,” he said, a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, “and they told me my work was a gift to mankind, that I was an asset to them. But Hydra just needed me to do it one more time, and I agreed.” He was silent for a moment, his vision blurry with tears but unwilling to stop. He owed Steve this. “It wasn’t like SHIELD, Steve. Stars, it was so much worse.”

“They took everything from me, until I couldn’t remember who I was or what the sound of my sister’s laugh or what the sun looked outside of a porthole. My arm was the first thing they took, saying I needed to represent Hydra, so I let them. Then they took my mind.” Another reflexive tic, a corner of Steve’s mouth quirking, but Bucky didn’t notice the reaction as he’d pressed his forehead against the side of Steve’s head some time ago. Their hands remained clasped. “I didn’t just work for Hydra, I was Hydra. I was a weapon, Steve. I was someone who killed people without remorse, someone who listened to orders like a lowly dog, someone who would’ve fucking put a bullet in your brain if it was so much as said.”

“I let them use me for so long that I can barely even remember the space between when I was in cryo-sleep and when I wasn’t.” He was rambling now, incoherent streams of words jumbling together. “I don’t even know how it happened, but one day I didn’t complete a mission. It was the first time I hadn’t reached my objective. I couldn’t do it, something just stopped me.  So instead, I ran.” Bucky didn’t register the slight shift of Steve’s body, his head turning towards his.

“I went from fuel port to moon station to satellite, getting what work I could. It wasn’t long before SHIELD tore Hydra apart. Then I was finally able to sleep in shared quarters and stop trying to hide my arm.” Bucky was numb to the feeling of lips skating across his cheek, his fingers empty but hands running over his back in soothing motions nonetheless. “My memories come back slowly, but I still don’t want to remember any of it, even if it means sacrificing what little I have left of my life before. But I don’t want to forget this, Steve. I can’t forget you, I can’t lose you— _please don’t make me do this_ —”

“Bucky, it’s okay, I’m here,” he heard Steve saying, his voice hoarse but the pressure of his hands was sure. “You’re fine, Buck. I’m here now, I’m not going anywhere.”

Bucky curled his fist against Steve’s collarbone, stubbornly refusing to open his eyes, to let Steve see him for what he truly was—a monster, an abomination, a phantom.

“I’m with you till the end of the line, remember?”

Bucky stilled, broken and shaking under Steve’s touch. He raised his head as Steve repeated the same words, quiet and steady against his lips. The pilot’s smile was tremulous, quivering with the effort to keep Bucky grounded even when he barely had the strength to speak. Steve met Bucky’s tortured gaze resolutely.

“Till the end of the line.” Steve affirmed after a prolonged silence, still acting as Bucky’s compass in the storm. He didn’t move, didn’t say anything further, just waited for Bucky to make the first move.

There was a restraint in Bucky’s movements as he leaned forward to kiss Steve, like he was afraid to take that liberty. He kissed him soundly, softly. “Till the end of the line,” Bucky whispered, raising his metal appendage with a well-oiled whirr of machinery to caress Steve’s cheek, a thumb brushing the skin under his eye.

Steve’s expression was intimate and affectionate, his golden warmth slowly thawing Bucky’s ice. For a moment Bucky allowed himself to feel as if he deserved this, but he was quickly ripped from the edge of daring to hope when the door suddenly slid open.

Bucky jerked back from Steve, already cold with the loss of his jostled touch. Tony was halfway through an awkward apology when he halted mid-step into the room. “Hey,” the captain held out a steaming mug in a peace offer. “Nice to see you up, Steve. Kid.”

Conflicted, Bucky looked to Steve desperately before pulling away, needing to escape the claustrophobic confines of his quarters. There was nothing he wanted more than to hide in the crook of Steve’s shoulder, but he couldn’t stand the sight of him right now—the emotions of guilt, vulnerability and pain warring inside him. He ignored Steve’s weak attempts to pull him back, obstinately not looking at Tony as he pushed into the hallway.

Heart pounding, Bucky leaned against the cold, unforgiving wall outside, willing his lungs to inflate and deflate with every breath. He heard the dulled sounds of conversation in the galley, and the lower murmur of voices in Steve’s quarters, so he headed for the cockpit. Bucky hurried inside, growling at JARVIS to seal the room off.

“Barnes?”

Bucky opened his eyes; now realising he had walked in on a clearly personal affair between Nat and another man projected onto the window telescreen. “Sorry,” he mumbled, white-hot pain lancing through his brain. “I didn’t notice. I’ll go.”

“No, wait,” Natasha shifted from her cross-legged position in Steve’s pilot’s seat, reaching for the console controls. “Sam, this is Clint’s replacement, most affectionately known as Kid, Cyborg, or Steve’s One True Love. Barnes, this is Sam.”

Bucky glanced at the dark-skinned man. His mouth parted in a soft gasp once he realised that it was the same Sam from Steve’s cherished pictures. Bucky habitually assessed Sam’s sleek appearance—he was struck by the familiarity of the cut of his pilot’s jacket, the wide smile, and his unashamedly open expression—but his focus centred on the other man’s worn T-shirt.

“You worked on the Potomac Sea?” Bucky asked, concentrating on breathing through his nose.

“I did a while back. Best oil rig in the Northern Quadrant, mate.”

“How long did you work there?”

Sam quirked an eyebrow at Bucky’s odd question, but still proceeded to answer. “Too long. About a decade before I ended up in some nameless SHIELD academy.”

“Okay, well,” Natasha interrupted, “as much as I don’t want to break up this little burgeoning romance between you two, I have a husband who is currently burning through our last food stocks.” She pressed the rim of her coffee mug to her lips, sipping the boiling dark liquid delicately. Glancing at Bucky, she added, “Me and Sam were almost done here anyhow. You can have the place to yourself in a sec, Barnes.”

“You don’t have to do that, Natasha,” Bucky managed to say, even when his hands tremored, knees threatening to buckle. “You don’t have to—”

“Barnes, cool your thrusters. It’s fine.”

Bucky eased onto the floor, pushing himself backwards until his back was firmly pressed to the wall. Hidden in the murky depths of the cockpit, he ran his hands over his scalp, and blunt, oil-stained fingernails pulled at his hair. He listened to Sam and Natasha swap their affectionate goodbyes, like their relationship was based on a well-worn camaraderie, and then the call ended with a sonic beep.

The chair creaked as Natasha leaned back in the seat. After a lengthy pause, the silence broken with intermittent sips, she said, “We’ll be in the galley if you need us. Our crew don’t scare that easy.”

Once Natasha had left the cockpit, Bucky slowly unfolded himself and crawled into the pilot’s seat. A drawing had been etched surface of the console, a white star surrounded by a ring of red and white circles, and he gazed at Steve’s neat, cursive signature looped below. His fingers grazing the artwork, Bucky quickly opened the communications system and found the last recorded contact number. A repetitive droning sound filled the room as he contacted Sam Wilson, ID no. 0117.

The screen opened to a wide shot of clipped black hair. “Nat, I’m sitting on about three hours sleep here—” Sam jolted in his seat once he realised who was calling. “Barnes?”

“Were you there the day Steve was shot?”

He frowned. “What?”

“An ex-Hydra operative shot former Captain Steve Rogers on an oil rig in the Potomac Sea. I think it’s suspiciously coincidental that my crewmate’s comrade happened to be employed at a crude oil refinery in the same ass-end of the universe.” Bucky fell back into his old persona easily, the subtle threat rolling effortlessly off his tongue. “So, tell me, where you there the day was shot?”

Sam relented, uneasy but not completely dissuaded. “Yes.”

“Do you have any footage of the incident?”

“Barnes, I don’t think—”

“Please, I’m not asking this of you lightly,” Bucky said, edging dangerously closer to desperate rather than intimidating.

Sam’s gaze slid to the side for a moment. In the small, virtual screen that reflected his video call appearance, Bucky belatedly realised that he was still dressed scantily in cargo pants. His hair was rumpled and loose, his skin pale against the metal of his arm, starkly contrasting the red star. Sam’s jaw clenched for a moment and Bucky was sure he would tell him to fuck off before Sam started to frantically type. After a few tense minutes another screen appeared, largely obscuring the live feed of Sam, who was tiredly leaning back in his creaking rotating chair.

It was paused on an image of Steve standing at the bottom of the loading ramp. He was dressed in his usual pilot’s jacket, his hair a little shorter and darker almost. Tiredness was etched into the deep, creased lines of his face, the poetic sadness of the once-shining man almost poignant. He held an electronic tablet, running his gaze over the recorded contents.

“Sam,” Bucky started, “thank you—”

“I didn’t do it for you, well, not exactly.” Sam said, only a glimpse of his dark hair visible in the top right corner of the projected screen. “But Nat called me for the first time in a year today, and I think it was because of you.” A sigh. “We’re friends, of course, but Natasha Romanoff doesn’t directly contact someone unless she’s angry, sad, or scared.” He sighed—and Bucky was glad he couldn’t see Sam’s earnest expression, not now.

“Then why did she call?” Bucky heard himself asking absently.

“But I think she was terrified of watching someone die and knowing you couldn’t do anything about it, especially considering the way she talked about you and Steve—it’s like a right love story, I tell you.” Sam laughed softly before quieting, serious. “But whatever happens, I just wanted you to know that Nat isn’t angry with you. No one is. The crew care about you, mate.”

Bucky looked at the wide stretch of stars in front of him, unable to reply.

“Goodbye, Barnes.”

Sam ended the call and Bucky was left to stare at the paused video, debating the fateful choice of whether or not to watch it. A brief hesitation—and then he pressed play. The image started to move, the sound no more than an unpleasant static. Bucky watched Clint jog past Steve with a careless wave, causing Steve to smile tightly before his face returned to its usual mask of pensive exhaustion. Bucky silently stared at the video for a few more seconds before a low burst of sound cut through the white noise and Steve doubled over, dropping the tablet. He clutched his side.

A whisper of a cry was ripped from Bucky’s throat, wounded and small. Bucky’s knee bounced with nervous energy, stomach twisting and coiling into knots. He couldn’t see the person who had shot Steve. He was scared to even look. Steve struggled to straighten, but the action was followed by the ringing sound of another gunshot—one of Steve’s legs twisted. The pilot crumpled to the floor, knees weak and shuddering, and Bucky knew he would’ve done the same if he was standing.

A figure stepped into view, only half his side profile visible—Kevlar-like body armour moulded to a lean, muscled body. Definitely male, tall but not overly bulky. Bucky watched with baited breath as Steve looked at the man from his position on his hands and knees. Steve held his bleeding side, gingerly levering his wounded leg off the ground. His expression was pained, although his mouth moved to form to calm, whole words.

Another shot. Fingers clutched a dark circle of blood over Steve’s stomach. The slotted plates of Bucky’s metal arm moved with an adjustment of pressure as he ripped the leather and dented the frame of the pilot seat beneath his hand. The video shook, the footage grainy and incomprehensible before clearing, and the unknown man stepped closer to Steve. He raised his gun level to Steve’s head, and it took every last ounce of Bucky’s control to refrain from cleaving the flight console in half.

That man was going to kill Steve—and it could’ve been him, it probably was him.

When the man reached up to pull his hood back, Bucky paused the video, and his answer was a bleak and cruel truth.


	6. The Observation Deck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve strained to move, already desperately reaching forward. “Bucky, I—”
> 
> The door locked into place with a metallic thud of finality, silencing Steve. Bucky held his metal hand up to the glass for a moment, barely registering the violent shaking of his fingers, watching through blurred vision as Steve did the same. He choked on a strangled gasp, looking away for a moment. Steve’s mouth moved to form soundless words, a string of promises and reassurances and declarations that Bucky would never hear, and Bucky lifted his head to offer Steve his last smile.
> 
> And Bucky’s fingers found the launch button, pressed down, and he let Steve go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for you, Cat.
> 
> (And nothing makes me happier than changing the rating to mature. Really.)

_It was Brock Rumlow._

Brock Rumlow had nearly killed Steve.

Bucky’s intestines twisted painfully, his head aching dully. He could barely remember those who served in Hydra, more like the distinguishing features of cruel eyes and hands that were meant to break and maim. But Rumlow—the mere sound of his name made Bucky feel nauseated. He was the shadow of another shapeless memory, one with light hair and a clinical voice—

_His head snapped back, his cheek ablaze with the sudden sting of pain as the offending hand receded, a current of caustic electricity soon wiping everything Bucky thought he knew away—_

A short, tortured cry filled the air of the cockpit, and the edge of the flight console was warped beneath the impact of Bucky’s metal fist. He pushed the thoughts of Hydra—of Rumlow and the other man, the leader—far from his mind. Bucky diverted his attention to the video, watching as the moving image exploded in flashes of bright light, screeching with an unpleasant-sounding alarm.

Rumlow startled at the abruptness of the alarm, his hesitance lasting just long enough for Steve to wildly grope for the gun holstered beneath his pilot jacket. His arm flung around in a wide arc, the handgun haltingly pointed at Rumlow for a second before Steve pulled the trigger.

The video paused, the image frozen and cacophonous noise silenced by the tedious ringing of an incoming call. Bucky read the contact ID onscreen—the last name was Barton, so they must’ve been tied to Clint somehow. He was bristling with barely suppressed energy, needing to catalogue every detail of the video so he could find Rumlow and make him pay for each second of pain he caused Steve. But Bucky also knew that following Steve’s incident, the crew had been trying to reach out to those who were at risk of being lost to them.

And he couldn’t deny Clint the chance to make amends with Barney, someone he obviously cared for—or maybe even loved. Bucky knew Steve would never wrong Clint in that way—and the only thing Bucky was confident in doing right was following Steve. Momentarily closing his eyes to gain some semblance of control, Bucky exited the video and stood up from the chair.

Trepidation slowed Bucky’s steps as he approached the galley, his chest hollow but aching nonetheless. He stopped at the threshold of the large, normally inviting room, already wilting under the gazes of the— _his_ —crewmates. Bucky was sickened by the heartbreakingly genuine sight of a few tentative smiles, especially after knowing he’d unfairly lashed out at all of them within the past few hours. Bruce moved to stand, but Bucky shook his head reproachfully—he wasn’t unstable, merely guilt-ridden.

“Clint, you have a video call from the only other Barton in the universe.” His voice was strained.

The blond raised his head from Natasha’s lap, grasping hopelessly at alertness. Clint rubbed at his eyes, blinking as his wife pulled his arm away by the wrist. She whispered something to him and Clint nodded, nervous but excited, and followed Natasha out of the room.

When the pair passed him Bucky opened his mouth to speak, to ask for forgiveness, but Natasha shook her head gently. “Apology accepted,” she said, her mouth curved into a soft smile. “I don’t blame you.” Clint echoed the statement with his usual grin, looping an arm around the redhead’s shoulder in search for her unwavering strength.

“Married subordinates!” Tony called after them, “I need to speak to Happy sometime in the near future, so don’t go and—”

Clint’s reply was distant and casual: “I gotta call Kate too, Captain, so don’t hold your breath.”

Bucky watched the cockpit door slide shut before shamefacedly looking at the said captain. Tony was standing at the open entrance to Steve’s quarters. Thor and Bruce were sharing a large couch in the galley, coincidentally engaged in deep conversation as not to infringe.

“Tony, I didn’t mean what I said to you in the cargo bay,” Bucky licked his lips, searching for the right words. “About what happened before—”

“Do you know why I hired you?” Tony asked suddenly.

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “Because I was a member of Hydra.”

“No,” he answered firmly, crossing his arms. “I hired your sorry ass because I have a habit of picking up strays. Because you were looking at that SHIELD runner and the girl on his arm like you hadn’t even seen happiness in a long time. Because we all have our demons and I thought maybe you deserved something like a second chance.”

“But—”

“So don’t make me regret doing that, kid.” Tony cocked a thumb in the direction of Steve’s bunk. “And please try to convince him to stay in bed, because it seems my first mate won’t sit still unless you’re currently half-naked and pressed up against him.”

Tony patted his shoulder as he passed Bucky, his smile curled wryly but the execution lacking—it seemed Tony was wearing a little thin. Bucky didn’t look at Steve as he stepped inside the room, gaze fixed on the floor, nervously pulling at an errant thread of his pants. He shook with cold, glancing at the raised goosebumps along his bare chest and flesh arm—he was still shirtless and barefoot, dressed in mere cargo pants.

“Steve?” He asked pathetically, the name ripped from him as Bucky finally looked at the pilot.

“Yeah?” Steve was resting on his side in bed, obviously swaying with the effort. Colour had returned to his skin, vibrancy replacing feebleness.

“Can I stay with you?”

Despite everything that had happened, he smiled anyway. “Yeah, Buck. You can.”

Bucky was quick to join Steve, curling around him protectively, pulling the blankets up around them both. Exhausted from the day efforts, and cautious of Steve’s fragile health, Bucky didn’t want to broach the subject of the events which had occurred at Potomac Sea. Not yet. Not when Steve was safe and warm in arms, good and pure and yet so breakable.

He fell asleep to the sound of Steve’s measured breaths, their chests moving in slow tandem.

Bucky awoke to the sight of Sam contently sitting at Steve’s bedside—Bucky had to blink a few times; to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Bucky raised himself up onto an elbow, the redistribution of weight causing Steve to lean more heavily against Bucky. The mechanic surmised that the Earthen relic arranged at Steve’s beside, playing some godawful excuse for music, was the reason for his rude awakening.

“I’m his replacement for the time being.” Sam said quietly, nodding at Steve. “I’m a pilot.”

At Bucky’s stunned silence Sam smiled, like a warm, friendly greeting. The mechanic noticed how his dark, expressive eyes were all the livelier and kinder in real life. Bucky had opened his mouth to speak when Steve shifted closer to him, blindly searching for Bucky even in sleep. The words fleeing his mind, Bucky instinctively reached up, his hand skating over Steve’s arm and down to his chest to make sure that steady beat of his heart was real.

When Bucky looked up Sam was intently reading a book in his hands, shoulders held loose and non-threateningly, almost like he was completely at ease with Bucky sharing Steve’s bed. Bucky was unable to ponder how a trained soldier was able to reach that decision, not just yet. But he had Steve, and he was okay—and now Steve had his best friend too.

Bucky allowed himself the luxury to think that maybe he could be happy, in time.

Only if for a moment.

Steve was roused awake, blinking blearily at the mechanic who hovered over him. Bucky almost didn’t even register Steve’s hand encircling his wrist. He was momentarily startled by the point of contact; fingers curling over the breadth of Bucky’s back, the steady pressure enough to draw Bucky’s attention.

“Hey,” Steve said, his smile wan. “I missed you.”

Bucky offered him a meagre quirk of the lips in return, a crack of pain fissuring throughout his chest and threatening to break. He returned the sentiment by dipping his head to kiss Steve swiftly.

Sam subtly coughed in the back of his throat, and Bucky would’ve scathingly chastised him for the interruption if not for the heartbreakingly bright grin that near split Steve’s face in half at first noticing Sam.

The intercom crackled to life, the sudden burst of noise flooding throughout JARVIS’ interior. Tony’s stricken voice cut through the harsh static: “Imminent hostile attack, I repeat, imminent hostile—“ The captain swore, once, twice. “Guys, we have to abandon ship. We can’t fight them—”

Bucky waited as Tony’s erratic panting echoed throughout the silence of the ship. At the volatile quality of the atmosphere, at the charged tension, Steve instinctively leaned back against Bucky. The mechanic made a low noise that was akin to a growl, a hand sliding under Steve’s arm and over his collarbone to hold him close, to hold him near. Steve had barely grasped Bucky’s wrist in an attempt to reassure him—or both of them—that he was there, that they were together, when their captain spoke.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Tony said gravelly, like there was nothing he could do except surrender. “You cut off one head and two more shall take its place.”

Bucky inhaled sharply, terrified. Angry. He felt the brush of Steve’s nose against his cheek as the pilot turned to look at him, reflexively acting as a source of comfort, but Bucky could barely hear his murmured reassurances. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

And then, the words that shattered his world: “It’s Hydra.”

Bucky felt something rip and break inside him as he separated himself from Steve, scrambling over the pilot and near crashing into Sam to find a shirt discarded on the floor. He tried to push the thoughts of the night he’d spent with Steve—quiet and peaceful in the dim light of his bunk—from his mind. He tried to forget the feeling of Steve sheltering Bucky’s body with his own, offering something that Bucky never thought he’d be worthy of deserving.

But now he needed to protect Steve, to protect his crew, not melancholically muse over what once was. And if saving them meant sacrificing himself, Bucky would do it, because he wasn’t going to condemn the only decent lot of people in the universe.

Bucky found a scrap of black fabric and pulled it over his head, long sleeves hanging loosely to his wrists—the shirt must’ve been Steve’s. He scavenged for his engineer boots, stumbling back onto the bed to hastily lace the shoes up. Bucky felt Steve move behind him, a hand grasping weakly at his clothed back, fingers wound tightly around his shirt.

“Sam, I need you get Steve out of here,” Bucky commanded, pulling the elastic tie from his wrist to yank his hair into a ponytail. “There should be five escape pods on the lower deck, near the infirmary. Make sure he’s in one before—”

JARVIS suddenly lurched sideways, thrown off-kilter by the force of a sonic blast.

“I’m counting on you to keep him safe,” Bucky finished somberly, unable to turn around even as he felt Steve slide closer to him, arms encircling his waist.

Sam’s mouth was a thin line, his gaze sliding from Bucky to Steve. “You got it.”

Steve’s breath was warm against Bucky’s neck when he spoke, “Bucky, wait—”

“Thank you, Sam.” Bucky stood up in a swift rush of movement, ignoring the pointed loss of Steve’s touch, ignoring Steve’s pitiful murmurs to look at him. But Bucky couldn’t be distracted, not now, not when he needed to have a clear head. Bucky was halfway through the door, forcing himself to look straight ahead, to not let himself falter, when Sam stopped him.

A hand on his elbow, a plea to stay. “I have a shuttle,” Sam said, radiating with a level-headed patience, a silent show of support. “If you need to, use it. Just try to get out. I don’t want to see Steve lose someone else he—”

“Take care of him.”

Bucky didn’t look back when he stepped from the room and strode towards the cockpit with a single-minded purpose. He strained with physical effort to disregard Steve’s loud pleas and objections as Sam guided him outside of his quarters and towards to escape pods, moving further and further away from Bucky.

In the cockpit Tony was braced over the flight console, Natasha sitting rigidly in the pilot’s seat. The captain glanced at him fleetingly, an assurance dying on his lips as he noted the cold, hard tilt to Bucky’s chin.

“Give me a gun and get out of here.” Bucky’s tone was flat, emotionless—his gaze more impassive still. “They’re here for me. I can’t let any of you die for that.”

“Romanoff?” Tony prompted after a pause.

“Our starboard engine is out, Boss.” Natasha levered the helm upwards, and all three watched as JARVIS narrowly passed over a sleek Hydra fighter jet. “We can’t fight, we can’t even fly. There’s no way we can make it out of this.”

Tony was deathly pale for a moment, almost eerie in his silence before leaning close to Natasha to reach the intercom. “Banner, Odinson, you take the escape pods. I want you off the mounted turrets too, Barton. I’m relieving you and your wife from duty.” The captain turned to Bucky, unwavering in his authority. “I presume Wilson—”

“Steve’s safe,” Bucky supplied.

A heavy set of footsteps approached from behind them, causing both Natasha and Tony to turn, but Bucky could recognise Clint’s light tread. “Tony, I’m not going to abandon ship. We have two gun emplacements and fully stocked munitions storage, we can fight, we can—”

“It’s non-negotiable. Romanoff?” Tony’s eyes were glassy, his movements choppy.

The second mate slowed the flight speed, allowing JARVIS to lapse into a stationary state that signalled their defeat rather than their escape. Natasha closed her eyes for a second before standing and saluting Tony. “On it, Boss.” She passed Bucky to grip Clint’s arm, urgently whispering something that made his jaw clench.

“Wait,” Clint reached for Natasha’s hand before releasing it and stepping forward, quickly unfastening his armoured vest and motioning for Bucky to take it. Clint helped Bucky tighten the flexible straps before pulling the handgun from his thigh holster and pressing it into Bucky’s open hand.

Bucky looked up, nodding at Clint with a strained sort of gratitude. His fingers slid over the familiar grip of the handgun. Bucky watched Clint and Natasha until they disappeared from sight.

“Once I speak over the open airwaves I want you gone too, Tony.” Bucky didn’t wait for a response before speaking on the communal frequency. “This James Buchanan Barnes, former member of the Winter Solider program, mechanic of the Avengers-class ship JARVIS, captained by Tony Stark. We are surrendering, I repeat, we surrender.” A tense pause. “You can do whatever the hell you want with me if you agree not to harm the seven other crew members. If you attack any associated escape pods or shuttles I promise you I will put a gun to my head and pull the trigger.”

Tony shifted closer, saying what he couldn’t through action.

Static filtered through the air, followed by the calm voice of a phantom: “Agreed.”

“Bucky—”

It was the first time Tony had used his name.

“Leave, Tony.”

“I can’t let you do this.”

For the first time, Bucky finally looked at Tony. Bucky was standing tall and stalwart, a vision of strength and an iron will, a direct parallel to Tony’s slumped defeat. But Bucky needed Tony to understand that he was tired of running, that he was tired of hiding. That this was ending _now_.

“You are not going to die.” Bucky affirmed, speaking to them both. “I’m not going to allow you or anyone else to die for me. You forget me and protect _them_.”

Tony blinked. “But Steve—”

“I’m doing this for Steve. I’m doing this for you and Thor and Clint and whoever else I put in danger.” Bucky sighed, quieting. “I’m doing this to save everyone I care about.”

Tony looked away, his expression contorted. But when he turned to face Bucky for the last time he had regained a dying man’s clarity, and Tony saluted Bucky like a soldier would in front of someone he deeply respected, someone he’d die for. “Godspeed, kid.”

Bucky collapsed into Steve’s piloting seat once he was sure Tony’s footsteps had receded to the lower deck. His heart pounded in his chest, a violent rhythm of pain and fear. His hands shook, contradicting his outward appearance of composure.

The radio suddenly exploded in a burst of harsh noise, startling Bucky. “Barnes, this is Natasha.”

He reached for the handheld transmitter. “Yes?”

“Clint and I took Lucky on Sam’s shuttle. We’re out, but we can only pick up four other life signals.”

Bucky’s heart faltered. “What does that mean?”

“You only have one escape pod remaining, but two people left on-board.”

Nausea roiled in Bucky’s stomach and he jolted to his feet, breaking into a terrified sprint. He rushed to the cargo bay, taking the steps down three at a time before twisting and heading towards to infirmary. He was greeted to the sight of four empty compartments, and Steve staring at the cracked reinforced glass of a lone escape pod with a wrench in his hand.

“I forced Sam into leaving, same with Tony,” Steve said softly, turning to face Bucky with a wide-eyed, wounded expression. “I couldn’t just let you die, Bucky.”

Bucky wanted to move, he wanted to drive Steve into the safety of the escape pod, but he was rooted to the ground. He was torn between fury and humble appreciation, between wanting to kiss Steve and push him away.

“I’m the only one who can do this.”

“You’re not!” Steve threw the wrench across the room in anger, the metallic clatter filling the spaces between silences. “You’re worth more than that, you don’t have to die just so we can live, it doesn’t work like that. I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself.”

And then Bucky was advancing, reaching out to grip Steve and forcing him backwards into the cylindrical chamber. “Just go,” Bucky said, voice firm. “Get out of here!”

“No, not without you!” Steve’s resistance wavered, his body weak with exhaustion, but he could still adequately convey his determination on the subject—his voice hoarse and heartbreakingly raw.

Bucky’s hands shook, stilling on Steve’s broad, heaving chest. “Steve, please,” Bucky pleaded. “You have to go. I don’t care what happens to me as long as I know you’re safe.”

“But _I_ need to know if _you’re_ safe.”

The mechanic’s smile was watery, leaning forward to catch Steve’s open, surprised mouth in a tender kiss. Steve was unresponsive for a moment before kissing back tentatively, fingers curling around Bucky’s shoulders, gripping the fabric tightly. Bucky was overwhelmed with the build of emotion in his chest as the blaring evacuation sirens quieted to a dull buzz, the world narrowing down to the very feel and touch and taste of Steve.

Bucky pulled back, practically tearing himself away. “Go.”

“No, you can’t make me leave you. You can’t.”

The mechanic’s smile broadened into a grin, wide enough that the corner of his eyes crinkled, and he shone with an exuberant happiness that took Steve’s breath away. If Bucky was going to die, he wanted Steve to remember him like this—a man whose thoughts were whole, a man who was finally able to find joy after so much pain.

A resounding boom echoed throughout JARVIS, the impact forcing the ship to precariously tip sideways. Bucky pulled back, telling himself that if he ever had the chance to do the right thing then now was the time. He glanced at Steve—beautiful, open, selfless Steve—and whispered once more, “Go.” Unable to help himself, Bucky kissed Steve deeply, his lips moving with intent. It was wet and sloppy and passionate, a completely insufficient goodbye to the man he—

And then, with all the force of his body, Bucky shoved Steve backwards into the escape pod. Stunned, Steve looked at him—scared, horrified, and helpless—as he comprehended the meaning behind Bucky’s actions. His chest splitting in half, Bucky cried with the physical effort of pressing the blinking controls that would enclose Steve inside the chamber and safety eject him into space.

But before the door slid shut, before a barrier forever separated him and Steve, Bucky said, “I love you, Steve Rogers.”

Steve strained to move, already desperately reaching forward. “Bucky, I—”

The door locked into place with a metallic thud of finality, silencing Steve. Bucky held his metal hand up to the glass for a moment, barely registering the violent shaking of his fingers, watching through blurred vision as Steve did the same. He choked on a strangled gasp, looking away for a moment. Steve’s mouth moved to form soundless words, a string of promises and reassurances and declarations that Bucky would never hear, and Bucky lifted his head to offer Steve his last smile.

And Bucky’s fingers found the launch button, pressed down, and he let Steve go.

Tears slipping down his cheeks, Bucky collapsed to the ground after Steve’s escape pod had been fully detached from the ship. An image of Steve—crying out for him, encased in glass and metal—was rooted deep in his skull, refusing to recede from his mind. Bucky’s fist slammed into the ground and he screamed with the anguish of a dying man, his soul cleaved in two.

Curled over the ground, hollow and cold with the absence of Steve, Bucky almost didn’t hear the mocking voice speak behind him. “And here I thought blonds weren’t your type.”

His innards were warped with fear and fury. “Rumlow,” Bucky acerbically hissed the name. He acted on instinct, reaching for the handgun in his waistband and whirling, firing three times.

Rumlow rolled to the side, dressed in fitted black clothing that almost mirrored Bucky’s attire, if his was less conservative. Rumlow aimed his own weapon—a submachine gun that would tear through metal and flesh alike—at Bucky retaliation. Bucky pushed himself to the side, sliding over the ground and scrambling into cover behind the corner of the infirmary.

“We almost didn’t find you,” Rumlow called out, his deep, gruff voice ringing amidst the harsh ringing of open firefight. “But you got sloppy, Soldier. The international docking area in Midgard is under constant surveillance, and the few short seconds in which you stepped outside were enough to glean a reliable identification. We tracked the ship easily enough. And if not for your little bargain Pierce would’ve killed your crew too.”

Bucky angled his metal arm around the corner and fired blindly. He heard Rumlow laugh darkly before shooting in a wide arc across the room, bullets shattering glass and decimating metal. Bucky curled his body into a tight, compact shape to minimise damage, even though he wasn’t in Rumlow’s direct line of sight—it was reflexive moment, belonging more to Bucky than the Soldier.

“But Steve Rogers?” Bucky hated the way Rumlow said his name, like a caress, like they shared a secret. “We never expected you to have regressed so far to be fucking a fellow crew member, especially such a decorated military officer.”

“Don’t talk about him.”

“And I assume you discovered what happened at Potomac Sea?”

Bucky clenched his jaw, refusing to provide Rumlow with anything that he could use to torment Bucky, but his pointed silence acted as an answer nonetheless.

“I can still remember how it felt to put a great war hero down like a common dog,” the smile was evident in Rumlow’s sickeningly satisfied voice. “He didn’t even put up a fight, didn’t even raise an alarm, he just watched me. It was almost like—”

Cutthroat, vicious: “I said don’t talk about him.”

Rumlow continued smoothly, “It was almost like he wanted to die.”

Bucky sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself to forget the grainy footage of a bleeding Steve, and to ignore the tinny echo of gunshots. He held his gun between his bent knees, focusing solely on his breathing—not Steve, not Rumlow, not anyone. Once he gained control of a regular breathing pattern and slowed his heartbeat to a steady thud, once he had raised himself to his feet, Bucky opened his eyes.

“Rumlow?”

A lazy noise of acknowledgement.

“You couldn’t even—” Bucky spun around the corner, knowing that Rumlow was too self-centred to be expecting an attack amidst his indulgent conversation. Bucky knew that Rumlow was a Soldier, not a strategist. And so Bucky revelled in Rumlow’s shocked expression as the impact drove one of Rumlow’s shoulders backwards in a violent motion, a bullet lodging into the man’s flesh with a meaty thud.

Bucky raised his gun to shoot again, but the pin struck an empty chamber. His mouth ran dry, his ill-advised euphoria quickly fading, cold dread running through his veins.

Rumlow grinned terrifyingly in response, despite his injury. Rumlow pointed his gun, the barrel hovering over the exposed area of Bucky’s chest, but before his finger could lightly press the trigger a blond man appeared behind him—a ghost, a demon.

“Rumlow,” Pierce said in warning.

Bucky’s body refused to move as he was locked into place, gears short-circuiting.

Rumlow opened his mouth to speak, his palm covering his blood-wet shoulder, but Pierce stopped him with a dismissive wave of the hand. Rumlow gaze was angled downcast, like he’d been scolded. Bucky’s stomach twisted painfully, his neck aching with the memory of doing the exact same thing—of submitting to a master, of thoughtlessly following command.

“One move,” Pierce said nonchalantly, holding up a small handheld device, “and your arm will release a deadly neurotoxin into your nervous system. You’ll die within a few hours if not treated with the antidote Hydra developed.”

“I don’t care what happens to me,” Bucky managed to snarl, his body already coiled tight with tension and ready to strike. His foot moved forward, subtly sliding towards Pierce and Rumlow.

Pierce held a finger up, and Bucky was sickened by how the sight almost compelled him to stop—he wasn’t their pawn anymore, _he wasn’t_. “One move and your entire crew die too,” Pierce said. “Hydra’s entire remaining aerial force in the Northern Quadrant are under my control, and don’t think I’m not tracking your little friends as we speak—five escape pods and one Falcon-class shuttle, yes?” His thumb hovered over the small button, his smile sinister.

“What do you want?” Bucky demanded. “I’ll give it to you, I’ll give you anything.”

“Oh, but I want you. Soldier.” His thumb dipped lower, almost grazing the button.

“Then take me!” Bucky knew in one move he could lose everything—Steve, his crew, his home. And he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t be given a small glimmer of hope and then forced to forget it—this was no fairy-tale, but he could at least try for a somewhat bearable ending.

Pierce cocked his head, forever-smiling.

“Just take me, I’m yours.” Bucky flung the handgun across the room, reaching for the sleeve of his shirt and ripping, revealing his metal arm in one swift motion. The titanium plates gleamed garishly under the grimy shine of the auxiliary lights, the red star starkly contrasting the silver colour of the intersected armoured mail. “This means I’m yours. I belong to you, okay? They don’t matter, not when you have me. So just take me. Just take me and not them!” He screamed, so loud and so wrecked the noise almost made him wince. “Don’t hurt them, just take me. I'm _begging_ you.”

Pierce didn’t move for a moment and merely stared at the sheen of sweat over Bucky’s brow, at the tendon working in his neck, and then Pierce nodded clinically. Rumlow—who, prior to Pierce's command, was an unmoving figure—was suddenly spurred into motion, advancing towards Bucky with a confident stride.

Bucky’s heart hadn’t stopped beating ever since he’d forced a dividing wedge between him and Steve. He’d spent so long hiding that his life had been a mundane existence, safe but unfulfilling, empty. But then he’d met Steve and blood had begun to flow in Bucky’s veins, and he was able to feel warmth rather than the freezing sting of cold—he had a _pulse_ , he had been _alive_ for the first time in years. And now he was left raw and shaking, like a skinned animal, ready to be slaughtered.

Bucky knew this feeling—he was finally alive, but he was about to die.

“Mission report, Solider.” Rumlow murmured with a thick air of amusement and malice, standing close enough to touch Bucky. To control him, to break him.

And how Bucky longed to be put under again, to lose himself in a cycle of wakefulness and not-sleep. Bucky didn’t want to remember any of this; he wanted his entire existence to be wiped from the universe, and himself. His future was cold and bleak and dead—glass coffins and searing burns of electricity and a blurred face he could never quite recall.

But when Rumlow’s hand closed over his metal arm, ready to disengage the weapon, Bucky was shocked by the cruelty of his touch, the inflicted pain of it. An onslaught of images, memories, and residual feelings flooded his mind—Tony and his stupid hat, so cocksure and broken but yet still able to joke and grin. Thor bathed in the light of the planetary nebula, his enveloping hugs, and the animated way he talked about Jane or mineral rock deposits on distant moons. Natasha and Clint—the two souls intertwined and interlocked, both hesitant to trust but unnervingly loyal in support of the ones they loved. Bruce’s large, comforting hand on his shoulder, a promise of more than what he was ever given.

And everyone else, everyone he would and will protect with his life.

And Steve, _Steve_ —was there anything else left to say?

Bucky looked at Rumlow levelly, his heartbeat now a steady lull. “I thought I deserved this once,” Bucky said, his chin tilted up in a challenge. His hands were steady, his mind clear.

Rumlow’s eyes widened in fear at the seamless calculation of Bucky’s words and actions.

“But someone else told me I deserved more,” Bucky reached out, twisting Rumlow’s arm and forcing his entire body to follow with a sickening crack, and pulled him back to act as Bucky’s human shield. “And I believe that now.”

Pierce’s unaffected composure slipped, hardening, and he pressed the button in his hand—

But nothing happened.

Bucky tightened his forearm over Rumlow’s throat, opening his mouth to explain, “My arm was never upgraded past regulation standards, and I disabled everything except normal routine physical function the moment my feet touched solid ground.” Bucky’s tone was even, efficient. “And JARVIS is an experienced war-time vessel; the ship has the available evasive technology to disrupt all outside communication except in the single instance of offensive lock-on commands.”

Pierce blanched.

“It means the signal was reversed. You directed the full force of Hydra onto yourself. You just destroyed your own army.” Bucky pushed Rumlow forward with a hefty shove as he simultaneously pulled the submachine gun from Rumlow’s grasp—Bucky had cut the strap when his metal arm was hidden behind Rumlow.

Pierce dove for cover, avoiding Rumlow entirely as the latter stumbled forward and fell to his knees on a floor of shattered glass. With his arm and gun outstretched in an extension of himself, Bucky closed the distance between them just as Rumlow turned his head. There was something primal there in his eyes, something animalistic and base-level in nature, but the man had lived without a soul so long there was no remaining hope.

Bucky shot him once in the head, a clean kill.

He faced Pierce, who had scrambled backwards up against an overturned gurney inside the ruined infirmary. “You tell me you’re not a monster, but look at yourself,” Pierce sneered, groping for a hold as he tried to pull himself up. “You kill, you obliterate, you _burn—_ you’re a weapon.”

“You did this to me!” Bucky unloaded one shot, barrel trained over the empty cavity of Pierce’s heart. Pierce faltered, his useless hands red with embedded glass shards, collapsing to his knees. “You made me like this. Weapons aren’t born they are made—and _you_ _made_ _me_.” Another shot, same place. “I was almost happy, I was almost able to think everything would be okay here and you took that from me. You hurt Steve and you nearly destroyed me and I can never forgive you for that.”

Pierce trembled, his whole body shook with the force of it, and he pulled his fingers back from his chest to reveal the dark swipe of blood. “But you’re mine,” Pierce said dazedly, his eyes shining—with pain, delusion?

“I’m not the fist of Hydra, I never was.”

Pierce smiled with an evil veneer as looked up at Bucky, his crisp dress shirt marked with a growing stain. “They’ll never forgive you for what you did.” His teeth were white, his eyes were cold, and his hands were red. “They’ll never see you as anything but a monster.”

“You’re the only one who sees me as a monster.”

“How do you know that?” He sounded genuinely intrigued, curious.

Bucky stood over Pierce in a reverse role of power; the strong poised over the weak—good and bad, pure and corrupted. “Because when he”—Bucky was talking about Steve, only ever Steve—“looks at me I feel real, I feel human. He looks at me and I know I’m not a monster—I’m not a weapon or a monster, I’m a person.” Bucky didn’t flinch when the gun jolted jarringly in his hand, the very bones of his hands aching with the kickback.

A trickle of blood trailed down from the small, neat hole in Pierce’s forehead.

“Even when you take everything from me, even when I have nothing, I’ll have Steve.” The words are whispered, absent of all emotion, but there was something hidden beneath. A seed of something _more_ , something hopeful and good. The handgun hung by Bucky’s side, defeated. “I have Steve,” he repeated to himself, to the husk of JARVIS.

 _I have Steve_.

_I have something you could never take._

Bucky moved on autopilot, gliding past the bodies to the cargo bay, and then climbing the stairs to walk in the general direction of the cockpit. He could sufficiently pilot small aircraft, but just barely. JARVIS soon started to speak to him in his reassuring Earthen lilt, helping Bucky navigate through the scattered floating wreckage of Hydra’s army. Bucky steered the ship slowly to reduce damage, and then he shut down the main engines and other non-essential systems when the space ahead of him was dark and fathomless.

Long after Bucky had fit himself in the small space between the two matching flight consoles, refusing to move even at JARVIS’ behest, he received a short message. The sender’s origin was unknown. It read: _Steve still has a pint waiting for you at the best tavern in the Western Quadrant._

JARVIS was already manually controlling the ship before Bucky had even gotten to his feet. The trip was tense, fear-laden, causing Bucky’s shoulders to ache with the weight of it. But when Bucky finally landed on the moon station, exhausted and drawn, Natasha met him at the docks swathed in the faint glow of green light. He lingered inside the open cargo bay, unsure of whether he was allowed to hope or not.

“He’s safe,” she said before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.

Bucky slept during their travel to Midgard, and only awoke once he had settled into a bed with clean, starched sheets, the space reeking of disinfectant and filtered air. A nearby machine beeped routinely, and the adjoining hallway emanated with a constant source of bright light, although the rectangular windows revealed a dark, starless night. He recognised it as a hospital.

Bucky looked around blearily, already fighting his rising gorge until he noticed Bruce seated at his bedside, slouched over and snoring peacefully. Thor’s chair was arranged close to his smaller crewmate, and his head had fallen to rest on Bruce’s shoulder in his sleep. Natasha was curled in Clint’s lap in a larger, comfier armchair in the corner of the room, Lucky lying at their feet—how they’d snuck him in Bucky didn’t know. With his arms protectively encircling his wife, Clint offered Bucky a tired smile, distracting the mechanic long enough that he didn’t notice Tony until he had wordlessly slipped through the door outside.

Someone was speaking distantly to his left, and Bucky turned his head to see another occupied hospital bed stretched out alongside his. He saw a plain-looking man in a suit standing across from him, directing his attention to the other patient in the room—but Bucky’s vision was obscured by a hunk of dark hair and a hanging curtain.

The suited man was rambling nervously, something along the lines of or equally as terrifying as: “I watched you while you were sleeping.” He paused before rushing to rectify his endearing yet awkward fumbling. “I mean... I was present while you were unconscious… from the ice.”

The patient—Bucky could discern it was a man, his large body covered save for the golden skin of his arms—remained silent before his chest shook with a rumble of deep, familiar laughter. And Bucky recognised that sound—he’d wiped out an army to hear that sound again, he would’ve started a revolution, he would’ve done anything.

“Steve,” he said weakly, reaching out to grip the curtain and yank it back.

Steve was sitting back against the pillows, his body whole and healthy, and he was smiling—large and bright and blindingly happy—before he could even see Bucky.

And when Steve offered his open hand across the space between their two beds, Bucky took it with the intention of never letting go.

Meanwhile, outside, Tony approached a tall, dark man in a villainous-looking cape who waited calmly in the luscious hospital gardens. A trim, lean woman in a sleek, ergonomic body suit stood guard at the caped man’s side, murmuring into a small headpiece. They made quite the pair—two SHIELD agents, both withholding enough power to wipe Tony and his crew from existence with one word.

However, an undeterred Tony walked towards them with a loose set of shoulders and an easy grin. “Well, you bring a whole meaning to being a space pirate,” he said, his unaffected charm directed at the man with a grim set of his mouth and eyepatch. “I feel like I need to step up my game here.”

“We’re not here to partake in any of your games, Captain Stark.” The man—the leader—said, the thinly veiled threat causing Tony to cock his head to the side curiously.

“Then what’s the purpose of this little cloak-and-dagger meeting, Fury?” _So_ , he mused to himself, _the myth is real. He does exist._

Tony was sure if the director of SHIELD had the ability to smile, at least ruefully, than he would’ve done so in this moment. But Fury had been haunting the dark underbelly of the universe longer than Hydra, and he wasn’t going to smile for any self-entitled heir from the Inner Provinces who masqueraded as a two-bit cargo hustler.

“I need your help in assembling a team,” Fury started.

“Sorry, but no dice,” Tony replied smoothly, his smirk more genuine than wry now.

Tony’s lack of thought concerning the decision caused the woman—Maria Hill, if Tony recalled the legend correctly—to blink in the only outward indication of her surprise. She quickly schooled her expression into a mirror image of Fury’s—one of perfected nonchalance.

“Why?” It was more of a demand than a question.

“Because I already have my own team of the universe’s mightiest heroes.”

**Eight Lunar Cycles Later**

“So, we’re shipping out tomorrow?” Bucky called out once he noticed the distinguishing shake of the spiral staircase, signalling Steve’s approach. Bucky had opted for a casual position upon seeking solace on the observation deck; one leg was hooked under the other, his head cushioned by a bent arm on the back of the circular couch. Bucky was dressed in his usual uniform—a grimy set of overalls with the long sleeves knotted at his waist, his grey singlet faded with extensive laundering. His hair had been pulled into a messy bun, brown strands having long escaped the elastic band to frame his face.

They had docked at Midgard this afternoon—it had become a routine, to swing by in the Inner Provinces at least once each lunar cycle, especially after Thor and Jane’s recent marriage. The crew would all found a comfortable place on either the planet or ship to spend the night.

After a disastrous incident involving strawberries and an ill-timed display of affection, Rhodey had finally succeeded in convincing Tony to shyly—yes, their brave captain had quaked in his boots on the day—ask Pepper to dinner. Of course, Thor was spending the night with Jane, also vaguely mumbling something about an estranged brother he needed to see. A black-haired girl had leaped onto Clint’s back once he’d set foot outside of JARVIS and an exasperated, albeit amused, Natasha had followed the two of them after the mention of a shooting contest. Bruce had said something about always wanting to visit the universe-famous botanical gardens and promptly disappeared, content to be alone. Although Natasha promised to keep him company after she was sure her husband and Kate weren’t going to accidentally kill or destroy anything valuable.

So, Bucky and Steve had been left to tend to the JARVIS—which was an opportunity they were eager to take full advantage of.

At Steve’s steadily approaching footsteps, Bucky impatiently awaited him under the faint glimmer of stars and artificial city stars on the observation deck, an inky, fathomless sky stretching overhead. He closed his eyes for a moment and revelled in the quiet calm of the ship.

It was easy to forget how long Bucky had gone without feeling like this, to actually wanting to live rather than enduring it. Growing up on a rudimentary colonial settlement, he’d dreamed of travelling beyond the stars, to seeing more than large atmosphere pressurisers and rundown agricultural technology, and so he’d sought adventure. However, Bucky had instead been exposed to a life of death and pain for someone much too young—but yet it had led him here.

And he was grateful for waking up with a sleepy press of Steve’s lips to his forehead, to days spent working in exhaustingly satisfying toil, and to nights spent in the companionship of people whom he trusted. To falling asleep quickly and soundly—his nightmares less vivid, less frequent. Or finding rest slowly—after the sweat had cooled between his and Steve’s skin, his cresting pleasure ebbing to a pleasant hum as the scorch-hot brand of Steve’s kisses and teasing bites faded, the pilot’s solid weight resting comfortably against Bucky.

Steve finally reached the observation deck, his mouth already curving into a soft, private smile that broke through Bucky’s contemplative reverie. His pilot’s jacket was unbuttoned, the standard colours of navy and white dulled in the darkness, revealing a tight shirt stretched across a chest that Bucky could memorise by touch alone—every dip, ridge, and plane of muscle mapped out. Arranged low on his waist, Steve’s belt buckle gleamed dully, fastened to dark pants.

“Hey there,” Steve said, greeting Bucky with a swift kiss before sitting beside him. Steve unlaced his heavy boots before leaning back with an appreciative huff, glancing at Bucky once he had moulded into the shape of the couch. They shared a breathless, excited smile.

“Hey. I’ve missed you lately,” Bucky admitted quietly.

Steve ran a hand over his face, feeling the rough grain of his five o’clock shadow. “It’s not my fault Tony only takes jobs which include the certainty of death and small chance of success.” The skin below his eyes was dark, despite the bright blue of his eyes and lively tone.

“Well, our captain isn’t here right now,” Bucky pointed out helpfully. “And neither is our crew.” He rested his weight on his hands and leaned closer to Steve, until their noses brushed, until they shared the same air.

Steve raised an assessing eyebrow, unimpressed. “Really?”

“Steve,” Bucky teased lowly, the noise a suggestion-laden caress in the back of his throat. He reached for the open collar of Steve’s pilot jacket and drifted downwards; savouring how easy it was to find the steady beat of Steve’s heart beneath the thin material of the white shirt. His fingers traced the length of Steve’s clavicle, playful and light, and Bucky’s fingers curled around Steve’s neck in a possessive hold.

“Bucky.” The name was whispered reverently into the still air.

Smiling faintly, Bucky’s touch slid further up to grip Steve’s hair by the roots and guided the pilot’s head down to where his mouth was a hair’s breadth from Bucky’s. Bucky could register the soft rise-and-fall of Steve’s chest beneath his hand, his eyes shining in the dark.

Steve was the first to break, effectively shattering the fragile atmosphere, and the teasing offer of want was now replaced with an insistent, demanding need. Steve swayed forward to catch Bucky’s lips in an uncoordinated kiss, an enthusiastic yet messy melding of lips that lacked any real finesse.

Bucky did long since forgo technique for deep, base feeling, instead relying on natural instinct—he kissed Steve slowly when he was tired and relaxed, and then furious when he shook with the need to breach the distance between their bodies and _feel_.

Bucky and Steve hadn’t shared more than a handful of short moments together in the past few days—and innocently sleeping wrapped around each other merely hadn’t sufficed following the day Hydra had almost ripped them apart forever. Not when afterwards, shrouded in the safety of Steve’s bunk, Bucky had allowed Steve to take him apart slowly, with his hands, and mouth, and tongue, until he was a quivering mass of nerves and unguarded emotions. Until Bucky had clutched desperately to Steve’s shoulders, lost to the rhythmic movement of their intertwined bodies, Bucky whimpering—and then crying—with an animal need to be as close as he possibly could to Steve.

So, Bucky had decided that kissing Steve with a simple lazy indulgence wasn’t an option tonight, not when they were finally alone.

Bucky deepened their close-mouthed kiss, angling his head to coax Steve’s mouth open, to demand rather than linger. Clutching his hair into a loose fist, Bucky drew Steve closer, teasing the seam of his lips with a talented swipe of his tongue. Steve’s mouth opened almost instantly, attuned to the intention of Bucky’s actions, a hand resting on the bend of his metal limb. Steve uttered a low, pleased moan, surprised but not unwelcome to the change of pace. Steve felt Bucky grin against his lips.

In an echo of their first kiss, here under the stars, tentativeness turned to hunger. Bucky shifted closer, allowing his flesh hand to unwind from Steve’s hair to settle on the lapel of his jacket, pushing the fabric past his shoulders and tugging it down over his arms. Steve released Bucky and contorted his body to promptly rid himself of the jacket, momentarily breaking the kiss to complete the action—although Bucky glimpsed the inviting skin of Steve’s bared neck, and his lips quickly dropped to the apex of his neck and shoulder.

Steve gasped quietly, the needy sound causing Bucky’s metal hand to slip to the neglected side of Steve’s neck to hold him in place, a desensitized thumb stroking over the chiseled edge of Steve’s jaw. Bucky sucked on the offered flesh, trailing a scorch-hot line of kisses upwards, allowing a hint of sharp teeth to scrape the corded muscle beneath Steve’s skin.

Almost quivering with the mere sensation of Bucky’s mouth moving tantalisingly over naked skin, the slightest graze of Bucky’s teeth elicited a strangled moan from Steve, and the embers of his arousal burning low in his abdomen were stoked to a flame. Steve was suddenly surging forward to find a decent grip—the waistline of Bucky’s overalls—and _pulled_ , dislodging Bucky and forcing him to awkwardly clamber into Steve’s lap. Bucky had to desperately seek purchase—finding the broad set of Steve’s shoulders and holding—to remain upright as he was slotted into the cradle of Steve’s pelvis, legs bracketing the other man’s thighs.

“Steve—” Bucky was unable to finish as Steve’s hands dropped to cup Bucky’s ass and roughly pulled him closer, hitching him higher on his body. A strangled groan was ripped from Bucky’s throat as Steve centred Bucky firmly in his lap, eliciting a breathy gasp from the blond as Bucky’s redistribution of weight offered him a blissful source of friction. Bucky moaned, a white-hot spark of pleasure skating along his spine at the blinding point of contact where he and Steve were currently fused.

Transfixed by Bucky’s blissful expression under the scattered light of the stars, Steve raised upwards to kiss Bucky in a display of visceral need. Bucky’s lips were unresponsive against his for a moment, but then Bucky was matching Steve’s fervour with his own, kissing with heat. Bucky’s senses narrowed to the hot slickness of Steve’s mouth, the slow press of his hands over the swell of his ass before Steve’s touch slipped beneath his shirt, gripping the smooth expanse of flesh.

Bucky whined pitifully against Steve’s lips, grinding his hips down with the need to be utterly consumed by Steve, the need to be claimed by him in the most intimate way possible. Steve’s fingernails scraped across Bucky’s shirt in response and he surged forward, kissing hard enough that their teeth clinked together, drawing Bucky closer again. Steve began to move, a slow rocking motion that incited the embers of desire that was burning bright between him and Bucky, meeting every pointed movements of Bucky’s hips.

Their mouths were slotted together, a perfect slide of wet heat and contact that was much too easy to be lost in, whether they were in the observation deck, cockpit, or Steve’s bunk. Bucky’s whole body clenched as Steve canted his hips upwards, and Bucky held fast to the wide span of Steve’s shoulders as their clothed erections brushed together. Bucky gasped as Steve repeated the action and broke their kiss, his jaw tight with the strain of self-control. Their foreheads were pressed together, skin beginning to gleam with the first shine of sweat.

“Steve,” Buck moaned, the sound echoing on the glass dome overhead.

“What?” Steve panted against Bucky’s mouth, relentless in the repeated action of his hips, the feeling building, building, building—threatening to break altogether.

“If we keep doing this”—Bucky almost _keened_ , breaching every last shred of distance between him and Steve when the pilot found the sensitive area just below his ear and _bit_ —“I’m not going to last much longer.”

Steve’s tongue flicked out to soothe the reddened teeth mark on Bucky’s neck. Thankfully, he slowed the torturous motions of his hips and allowed Bucky momentary respite. Steve pulled back, revealing dark, blown pupils and a kiss-swollen mouth. “Then take this,” he said lowly, hands twisting in Bucky’s shirt meaningfully, “ _off_.”

The one secret Bucky would carry to the grave; the one he would treasure and cherish forever, is how possessive Steve was when it came to sex. Steve was constantly reaching for Bucky, holding him close as he left finger-shaped indentations in his flesh and sucked dark bruises over his skin. It seemed once Steve had finally gotten Bucky back—their hands intertwined between two beds in a Midgardian hospital—he was never willing to let Bucky go again. Or let him forget that they were together, that they were still whole, despite the odds.

Bucky needed it though, he _craved_ Steve’s touch—a kiss, arms encircling his body in their shared bed, a leg hooked over another’s on the couch. Steve had offered protection in a universe that had robbed Bucky of every form of security—but now he had a home, he had people who cared for him. He never needed a reason to fear his place on JARVIS, or the future, or what he felt for Steve.

And when Steve asked, Bucky said yes—he never had reason to doubt Steve.

Bucky slid off Steve, both of them keenly noticing the loss of heat and touch, before frantically disrobing. Steve followed suit, pulling his pilot jacket and shirt off in one wide sweep of his arm, and he fumbled with his belt buckle before Bucky—now completely naked, somehow—leaned over and knocked his fingers away. Steve grinned, the troubled lines of his face smoothing over in carefree happiness. Bucky’s heart faltered in the warm glow of Steve’s inner sunlight, and he caught his lips in a deep, searching kiss.

His fingers traced the scar over Steve's waist, registering Steve's slight tremble—they had talked about Potomac Sea quietly, when they were safe in the dark, pressed to each other. Steve said he was willing to die then, still clinging to a past he had been ripped from and a future he didn't understand. But he'd reassured Bucky with a long, slow kiss that he'd made his peace with the circumstances of his life. And that he'd never even entertained the thought of succumbing to the pull of a dark void once Bucky had entered his life, that now he cherished instead of resenting it. The next day when Bucky had greeted Steve at the table for the usual nightly round of Howling Commandos the star on his metal arm had been scraped off and replaced with a different star, encased in a blue circle and surrounded with white and red rings. Steve had smiled so much, and so often, that Bucky had remained curled in his lap for the whole remainder of the card game, head cradled in the dip of Steve's neck and a hand forever resting protectively on Bucky's hip.

Steve said his name breathlessly, threading his fingers in Bucky’s hair.

Bucky's attention drifted down and he pulled at Steve’s belt viciously in response, loosening the catch before near ripping the pilot’s pants and underwear down alike. “Please,” Bucky panted, “I need you inside me, Steve. I need you with me—don’t leave, please.” He quickly clambered back into Steve’s lap, sighing as he felt Steve’s arms settle sturdily over his back, holding him in place.

“You okay?” Steve asked, noting the quaking undertone to Bucky’s voice.

“I just—” He trembled as Steve nuzzled into him, knocking their noses together fondly.

“I love you.”

Bucky kissed Steve then, fighting back the urge to allow his defences to crumble completely. And then Bucky was saying it back, whispering a litany of _I love you_ into Steve’s skin, to the crook of his neck like it was a secret only he could hear. When Bucky kissed Steve’s neck softly he pulled Bucky close, until they were touching at every point possible, until their chests moved together with every breath. Steve’s hand stroked over Bucky’s head, carding through his thick hair, and he pressed a kiss to Bucky’s brow like it was a benediction.

Steve drew back so he could look Bucky in the eye—it was a question. Bucky nodded.

Bucky shifted, redistributing his weight over Steve’s lap, allowing Steve to work him open slowly, gently. Steve never broke Bucky’s gaze, sharing a heated look that made Bucky flush, his skin tinged red—although Steve was the real blusher in the relationship. And then when Steve leaned forward to kiss him chastely, Bucky desperately clutched onto Steve’s neck with his metal hand as he lowered himself downwards, focusing on the hot slide of flesh—on the feeling of being joined, claimed, and made whole.

“Bucky,” Steve panted against Bucky’s collarbone a few tense moments later, his lips ghosting over bare skin, pressing down in tender kiss. Steve canted his hips upwards in an involuntarily movement, simultaneously pulling Bucky closer as a sudden wave of pleasure rolled through him, counterpointed by a slight stretch of pain, although still overwhelming in its intensity.

Bucky cursed, the metal points of his fingers digging into the flesh of Steve’s shoulder, his flesh hand firmly gripping Steve’s hair in a desperate hold. “Stars, Steve,” Bucky’s breathing was ragged, his words strained. “Don’t leave, don’t make me forget you.”

His words only served to make Steve surge forward and kiss Bucky deeply, to savour the very taste of him. Only then when was Bucky able to breathe properly, to revel in how full and complete he felt whenever Steve was inside him. Bucky began to move, languid in pace, although he still succeeded in eliciting a pained groan in response.

Bucky flexed his entire body in one uniform motion, rolling his pelvis forward and back until his vision blurred. Steve was panting as he pushed his hips up, the new angle causing Bucky to cry softly against Steve’s head, fingers gripping the toned flesh of his shoulders. Overcome with the sensation of heat and contact, Bucky blindly searched for Steve’s mouth, kissing him to swallow his loud moans. Steve’s fingers twisted in his hair, and he began to cant his hips upwards in slow, measured thrusts.

The air was thick and heady with unfettered lust as Bucky began to meet Steve’s pace, matching the even rhythm, tempering the flames of something all-consuming. Bucky was lulled by the steady presence of Steve, the weight of him beneath his hands, the slow build to exquisite pleasure. Bucky’s back arched acrobatically, rolling his hips in a rounded motion against Steve’s.

Steve’s breathing become ragged, his moans shorter too—he could never rely upon his enhanced stamina when Bucky was writhing against him, his blue eyes dark with desire. Their skin was slick with sweat now, mouths pressed open and wet to each other, sometimes drifting to the curve of the neck. Bucky kissed Steve hard, unforgiving. He didn’t relent in their set pace, chasing the sparks of white-hot fire building low in his abdomen—Bucky _burned_ with the feeling.

When Bucky slipped his tongue into Steve’s mouth, fingers gripping Steve’s hair to keep him there, to make him stay forever, and he ground down against the pilot. Steve groaned loudly, unabashedly, pushing up into Bucky with wild abandon as his last dredges of control completely dissipated.

Steve cried out suddenly, his arms closing around Bucky with a bruising force, faces and bodies pressed flush together as he crested that final precipice of pleasure—and fell. Succumbing to the mere feeling of Bucky around him, close to him. And there was nothing else Steve needed to know in that moment, because Bucky was there and he was safe and they were happy.

Spurred on by Steve’s blissful expression, of the hot pulse of his release—of how Bucky had been able to elicit such a reaction from him—Bucky followed soon after. His whole body clenched again, but now it was immediate and powerful, a wave of ecstasy that caused Bucky to shake with the sheer intensity of it. Steve shouted his name weakly, still trembling with the aftershocks of his own pleasure. Bucky clung to Steve, hips moving jerkily in an irregular motion to fully spend his pleasure, to prolong the singular existence of him and Steve.

Bucky kissed Steve’s neck lazily, almost like an afterthought, and he felt pressure curl around his metal fingers—sometime during the blurred moments Steve and had bled into one person, and their hands had intertwined.

Bucky raised his head, exhaling shakily at what the small movement did to where he and Steve were still firmly joined. He nosed Steve affectionately, smiling wider at the deep rumble of a laugh in Steve’s chest. Bucky turned his head and found Steve grinning against his lips, like a promise whispered against Bucky’s skin, like a kindled hope for something more.

In that moment, the axis of the universe seemed to focus solely on Steve and Bucky there and then, limbs intertwined under the overreaching canvas of shining stars, the river of space painting them both in subtle strokes of green and blue and purple against the backdrop of a black sea.

And it had remained clear that Tony had been serious about his rule about fraternising with crewmates, unless with the best intentions—and too bad Tony and Bucky had already assessed the plated armouring of his left arm, and they knew that one of the small metallic circles on his ring finger could be stained gold in due course.

And Steve had spent countless nights pacing in front of Sam and Natasha, running over exactly what he was going to do and say—exactly what he was going to _ask_ Bucky—when the time came.

And Steve knew that JARVIS would pass by another planetary nebula tomorrow, and when he invited Bucky to view one of nature’s greatest marvels alone with him in the cockpit, Steve knew he was going to make it count.

(And when Steve asked, Bucky said yes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like this one's finished, kids. It's been a fun ride, and I've loved every single comment (honestly, they are the best) and interacting with you all, and it definitely was hella rad to fulfill my lifelong dream of writing an epic Firefly-esque space romance between Steve and Bucky. Now onto my next planned tattoo shop AU (YEAH).
> 
> Also, howdy, I'm on [tumblr](http://diggitydamnsebastianstan.tumblr.com/)


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